Affected owner says community should not been dragged

MANGALORE: The Prasad Apartment Owners Association may claim that the decision not to rent out or lease premises to Muslims was unanimous. It does not appear so.
Fathima Zohara, wife of Haneef Mohammed, owner of the apartment on the ground floor, says Haneef had reservations about the wording of the resolution barring all Muslims to be either tenants or lessees of the building.``Even I am against it. Yes, I agree we had problems with a Muslim teant. How can you paint all community members with the same brush,’’ she questions. Haneef owns two flats in the complex having 25 dwelling units and he lives in one and rents out the other.
``My husband is not biased about other communities, but he will give his apartment on rent to Muslims only,’’ she said. Haneef’s family, which was living at Kulur started living at Prasad Apartments two years back.
``There were suggestions at the meeting that the apartments could be rented out to small families, but I don’t know who had the final word,’’ he said. Suresh Karkada, president of the association, says: With some owners not living here and not attending the meeting, such issues cannot be taken up as we don’t have hold over the tenants. We did not have the problem with Imthiyaz Ahmed, the tenant on the second floor. Haneef had a problem and he raised it at the meeting. We told the owner Harold Pinto and he asked them to vacate the premises and they did a couple of months back.’’
In the 25 unit apartment complex, there are five Muslims families, 11 Christian families and rest belongs to Hindus. ``You should live in a flat and know what community living is. All these problems crop up when owners who are after big money don’t care whom they are renting their premises to and put all others in trouble.’’
He also said the association had filed a suit against another owner Kamrulaila, who was not living here, as she kept maintenance dues amounting to Rs 61,000 pending.