GHMC demolishes ISKCON walls

Members decry civic body’s action

Hyderabad: The members of ISKCON Secunderabad, along with their President Dr Sahadev, were caught unawares on Thursday afternoon when GHMC officials came along with the police force and demolished a newly-constructed wall on the temple premises.

By the time the ISKCON members arrived at the scene, the entire wall and three small rooms were already demolished. As the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) officials refused to heed to their request to stop the demolition,

the members staged a dharna and sang bhajans to stop further demolition. “There was neither a notice nor a warning from GHMC before they resorted to such bullish behaviours,” stated Dr Sahadev.

The small area of land flanked by the temple on one side and the Corporation Bank on the other was being used by the temple authorities to park the Rath (the temple chariot), and the area has a mesh as boundary on both the sides.

However, a wall was being constructed on the rear side to prevent garbage from being dumped, according to ISKCON members.The GHMC official, at the site, refused to divulge the reason for demolition and just said that they were only demolishing unauthorised structure.

Lamenting the demolition, the members produced documents proving that the piece of land belongs to the temple. In fact, the elderly donor of the area Jagannadam was also present there.

He said, “We donated the land in 1984. I do not know the reason for such an action by GHMC.” It is already known that a portion of ISKCON land is being given away for Metro construction, thanks to the alteration of the original Metro work plan and a little more is expected to be taken away by road widening.

On further questioning, GHMC said the area comes under the Metro Rail corridor and the demolition notice was already served to this effect.