A post claiming that the Gujarat Waqf Board has claimed two islands in Hindu pilgrimage site ‘Beyt Dwarka’ is widely shared across social media platforms. Through this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: The Gujarat Waqf Board claimed that two islands in ‘Beyt Dwarka’ belong to them.
Fact: The Gujarat Waqf Board condemned this claim and clarified that they did not file any petition in the High Court regarding any land in ‘Beyt Dwarka’. Jamnagar BJP MP Poonamben Maadam clarified that the case related to the island of ‘Shiyalbet’, which is in the Amreli district of the Saurashtra region, is being mistaken for ‘Beyt Dwarka’, which is in the Devbhumi Dwarka district in the west of Gujarat. The case related to ‘Shiyalbet” nowhere mentions ‘Beyt Dwarka’ in the petition. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
To verify the authenticity of the viral claim, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet. We found a report stating that Jamnagar BJP Member of Parliament (MP), Poonamben Hematbhai Maadam, has stated that this is not true. The area of “Beyt Dwarka” falls under the Lok Sabha constituency of Jamnagar. Jamnagar MP Poonamben issued a clarification in a media statement, saying that “no such claim had been made by the Waqf Board and that she had officially verified through the Law Minister and the District Collector.”
Similarly, the Gujarat Waqf Board condemned this claim and clarified that they did not file any petition in the High Court regarding any land in ‘Beyt Dwarka’. They also stated that a private Sunni Muslim trust filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court concerning the Sawai Pir Dargah in Shiyalbet, and the Waqf Board was merely present at the hearing as required by the High Court’s orders. Poonamben explained that the confusion arose because the names Beyt Dwarka and Shiyalbet are similar, and the actual ‘Beyt Dwarka’ has nothing to do with this case. According to the Gujarat Tourism website, an island named ‘Beyt Dwarka’ is in the Devbhumi Dwarka district, located to the west of Gujarat, where people believe Lord Krishna lived there, and there are shrines of various Hindu deities. In contrast, Shiyalbet is an island in the Amreli district in the south of Gujarat.
Details related to the Shiyalbet case can be seen here. “Beyt Dwarka” is not mentioned anywhere in this petition. The status of this case on the Gujarat High Court website can be seen here.
According to a news report by ‘Times of India,’ the Sawai Peer and Itar Peer Dargah Trust approached the court, claiming that government officials were not allowing tourists to visit Sawai Beyt island and the shrines (dargahs) on this island, citing national security. The petition also states that a Hindu temple is being built on land belonging to the Waqf Board.
To sum it up, the Gujarat Waqf Board did not claim that ‘Beyt Dwarka’ belongs to them. The case related to ‘Shiyalbet’ is being falsely linked to ‘Beyt Dwarka’.
