New Delhi: The Gujarat Assembly on Wednesday (March 25) amended the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled state’s controversial Disturbed Areas Act by a majority vote, with the latest amendments giving sweeping powers to the district collectors to take possession of a property in such areas that will now be called “specified” areas, reported Indian Express.Minister of state for revenue Sanjaysinh Mahida said that the reason for this move was to prevent “involuntary transfer of properties in the specified areas and protection of legal owners’ interests”.The “Gujarat Prohibition of Transfer of Immovable Property and Provision for Protection of Tenants from Eviction from Premises in the Disturbed Areas (Amendment) Bill 2026’ expands the scope of “aggrieved party” and allows collectors to suo motu investigate applications against transfer of any such property by the “upset” party.The Bill gives the collector the power to take possession of any such property, if the property transfer is found “objectionable”, said Mahida.The amendment also makes the provision for the appointment of a monitoring and advisory committee to advise the government about an area’s potential for communal disturbance leading to the “involuntary displacement” of its residents, expanding the definition of “aggrieved persons”, reported Indian Express.The Indian Express report added that in place of the existing provision in the Act for declaration of an area as ‘disturbed area’, a new provision will be substituted to expand the instances for declaration to include “situations where an area of the state has become or is likely to become prone to disturbance of public order due to communal tensions…” it proposes.BJP MLAs including legislator from Amit Shah and MLA from Vejalpur Amit Thaker claimed that Hindus were “forced” to migrate after selling their properties to Muslims and that there was a “conspiracy” to change the demography of Ahmedabad.Imran Khedawala, the only Muslim MLA in the Assembly opposed the Bill and said that the BJP MLAs were discussing such issues in the House since they feared losing votes. He also requested the state government to allocate land for the minority community in proportion to its population.“If it is true that there is peace in Gujarat in the last 30 years of the BJP’s rule, then why are new areas added to the Disturbed Areas Act. Over the last few years, 44 new areas have been included under the Act,” said Khedawal, a Congress MLA from Jamalpur-Khadia.Gujarat’s existing Disturbed Areas Act has often raised questions about ghettoisation of minorities, especially Muslims.As reported before by The Wire, in September 2025, a 15-year-old Muslim teenage girl from Gujarat ended her life after her family’s purchase of a house in their own neighbourhood led to months of harassment, violence and intimidation under the shadow of Gujarat’s Disturbed Areas Act.Neighbours allegedly threatened them with legal action under the Disturbed Areas Act, implying that their purchase could be invalidated. This, the family said, deterred them from pushing harder for police action and created the space for intimidation to fester.