Collector blamed for not razing illegal temple

MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has held city collector Pradeep Vyas responsible for not razing an illegal temple at Marine Drive for the past five months.
The temple is located on collector''s land and the civic authorities are insisting on its demolition. Mr Vyas said he was unaware of the illegal structure. Civic official Vasant Prabhu of C-ward said that he would write a letter to Mr Vyas, asking him to deploy his anti-encroachment staff to demolish the temple. "If he has any problems, the BMC is willing to offer its staff and equipment for the demolition," he said.
The C-ward staff had demolished the temple in July last year. Mr Prabhu said he had then apprised the city collectorate about the demolition and asked the collector to protect the land from fresh encroachment.
"But the temple was reconstructed within a month.How did the collectorate, which has three additional collectors for anti-encroachment, fail to prevent the temple from being rebuilt? It should be held accountable for not taking action against an illegal structure."
Mr Vyas said he was not aware about the temple until he read it in ‘The Times of India''. "I took charge as city collector five months ago. But now that the matter has been referred to me, I will look into it," he said.
About razing the temple, he said, Since it is a religious structure and a sensitive issue, there are certain procedures to be followed."
He did not elaborate. However, BMC officials said apart from ensuring adequate police bandobast there were no special procedures for demolishing illegal places of worship.
Sources alleged that officials at the collectorate were succumbing to political pressure. According to the sources, the temple was rebuilt with the support of BJP MLA Raj Purohit.
Mr Purohit claimed that people had been offering prayers here for the past 20 years. The devotees only wanted to protect the idols by fitting grilles. "What is wrong with that?" he asked.
BJP city unit president Vinod Tawde said he was unaware about Mr Purohit''s involvement. "If the temple is illegal, it should be removed. But we cannot hurt the sentiments of local residents who offer prayers regularly there.What we can ideally do is shift the temple to an alternative location where nobody will have any objections," he said.
Additional police commissioner (south region) Surendra Kumar said if the collectorate planned to carry out the demolition, he would provide adequate staff to ensure there was no law and order problem. "We will also protect the government staff carrying out the demolitions," he said.
The temple is situated next to the Princess Street flyover. It has a Shivling and idols of Kali and Ganesh. Priest Vithal Pandey claimed that the Shivling was "discovered" by local residents three decades ago and they have been worshipping it ever since.
"It was only five years ago that I constructed a temple by covering the Shivling with grilles from three sides and erecting a two-feet high dome. This was done to protect it from being damaged or desecrated," he said.