Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan, who recently survived a knife attack inside his home by an armed intruder, may not be the only one fighting to secure the rights to properties in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. A Moneycontrol analysis shows that the government has increased its scrutiny of enemy properties since 2014, with the number rising fourfold.
In 2012, while the government had recognised 3,341 enemy properties, the count increased to 12,090 in 2014, according to data from the ministry of home affairs annual reports.
Saif Ali Khan’s ancestral properties in Bhopal were also added to the list in 2014, following which the actor filed a petition challenging the order of the Custodian of Enemy Property for India in 2015.
Nearly two thousand more such properties have been identified since, with the number rising to 13,825 by March 2024.
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While Khan’s properties are valued at Rs 15,000 crore, a 2019 government report claimed that the enemy property's total value might exceed Rs 1 lakh crore—an amount good enough to cover the country’s education budget or nearly 40 percent of the pension bill.
Despite the controversy surrounding Saif Ali Khan’s lands, Madhya Pradesh may not be the ideal state for locating enemy properties.
The state’s count of enemy properties increased from 28 in 2010 to 88 in 2018 and 148 by 2025. However, Maharashtra made more significant gains.
Between 2010 and 2018, the number of enemy properties in Maharashtra doubled from 22 to 49, and it shot up to 430 in 2025.
Uttar Pradesh, which accounts for over 40 percent of the country’s enemy properties, had just 622 properties in 622, which rose to 4,991 in 2018 and 5,668 in 2025.
West Bengal has also witnessed massive gains as the number of enemy properties jumped from 232 in 2010 to 2,786 in 2018 and went up 56 percent to 4,354 in 2025.
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