ASSOCIATED PRESS A Kashmiri Muslim woman prays at the Hazratbal shrine on Eid-e-Milad, the birth anniversary of the prophet, in Srinagar, J&K.

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir – On 5 August, when the Narendra Modi government scrapped the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the state, the Act overseeing the functioning of Muslim shrines and properties was abolished.

However, the Acts that oversee Hindu and Sikh shrines remain unchanged.

The Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act 2019 reads, “Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Specified Waqf and Waqf properties (Management and Regulation) Act, 2004 will be repealed on 31 October and the Central Waqf Act, 1995 will be extended to the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.”

The Reorganisation Act further states, “Amarnath Ji Shrine Act 2000, J&K Shri Mata Sukhrala Devi Ji Shrine and Shri Mata Bala Sundhari Shrine Act 2013, Shri Vaishno Devi Shrine Act 1998, Shri Shiv Kishori Shrine Act 1999 and J&K Sikh Gurdwara and Religious Endowment Act, 1988 will be kept intact.”

The Reorganization Act doesn’t explain the reason for abolishing the Waqf Act, while keeping the Acts governing the other religious bodies.

Achal Sethi, the law secretary of J&K, said that following the bifurcation all central Acts have to be extended to the J&K including the Central Waqf Act. “At the central level, there is no Amarnath, Vaishno Devi and other Hindu and Sikh religious Act and so we have to retain the state Acts of these religious bodies,” he said.

In light of the harassment and violence targeting Muslims since the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power in 2014, and recent developments like the bifurcation of India’s only Muslim majority state and the passage of a discriminatory citizenship law, people are nervous about the singling out of the Muslim statutory body.

Mushtaq Ahmad Dar, a senior criminal lawyer in Kashmir, said, “Waqf properties, mostly shrines, will come under the direct control of the central government. We all know what is happening in India. I don’t want to further comment on it.”

Reacting to law secretary Sethi’s explanation of there simply not being Amarnath and Vaishno Devi Acts at the Centre, Syed Lateef, a lawyer who practices in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, said, “Losing Waqf is a small thing. The larger point is that we have lost our identity.”

Mehmood Pracha, a Delhi-based lawyer and the co-convener of the Samvidhan Suraksha Samittee – a committee formed after Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act – made two points. First, the central Waqf Act is very similar to the State Waqf Act, and second, it applies to every Union Territory and state in India.

He added, however, “But the government scrapping the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and making applicable the Reorganisation Act is foolishness.”