J&K Waqf Board Chairman Darakhshan Andrabi addresses mediators at an event in Srinagar. | Photo credit: Imran Nissar
Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board Chairman Darakhshan Andrabi on Friday (January 16, 2026) joined other Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders in Kashmir in defending the police move to high-profile mosques in the Valley.
“Property verification should not be viewed with suspicion. Just as household land ownership requires proper documents, religious properties such as mosques, shrines and gurdwaras also need verification. Imams, maulavis and mosque committees need not panic,” Ms Andrabi said.
Stating that there was no political agenda behind the process of profiling mosques, Ms. Andrabi said, “When the Waqf Development Act was introduced and passed, it was also termed as interference in religious affairs. There are several people who make their politics on such issues. The fact is that J&K has emerged as the leading Union Territory in registering Waqf properties.”
“There is no need to politicize mosques or mislead people on this issue,” she added.
BJP spokesperson Altaf Thakur said oversight and vigilance is a must for accountability and transparency of all institutions. “Past experience tells us that mosques have been used by maulvis in Kashmir to ask people to come out and hold pro-Pakistan rallies. Even though it was stopped in 2019, some elements still use the mosque as a political platform and for propaganda,” Mr Thakur said.
He said there is nothing wrong in finding out who funds the mosques, the nature of the land on which the mosque was built and the ideology it followed. “The Wahhabi ideology is the same as the ‘sar tan say juda’ ideology. We need to know what is being taught in these mosques. There should be no objection to that,” Mr Thakur said.
The BJP leader said mosques in Kashmir were used to play pro-Pakistan songs in the 1990s. “Pakistan used local molvis in Kashmir in the 1990s. Recently, a medical terror module was arrested and traced to a molvis,” Mr. Thakur said, referring to the Red Fort blast in November last year.
The BJP stand followed a statement by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Ulema (MMU), a conglomerate of Islamic religious organizations in Jammu and Kashmir, which termed police profiling as “intrusive”.
According to the MMU, the police distributed multi-page forms and sought details including private identification details, family details, financial information, phone details, digital and social media profiles, passport details, travel history and even phone IMEI details and other personal details of everyone associated with the operation and management of mosques.
The profiling of mosques was opposed by the ruling National Conference, the Opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the J&K People’s Conference and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kashmir.
Published – 16 Jan 2026 22:01 IST
