Demolition of 40 Bandra crosses put on hold !

Local residents of Bandra finally got a respite from the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) over the issue of demolition of 40 crosses supposedly hindering road widening projects.

On Tuesday, Arif Naseem Khan, Guardian Minister for suburban Mumbai got an assurance out of Municipal Commissioner Subodh Kumar that BMC would put on hold for a month its plan to demolish crosses that are obstructing the road widening work in Bandra.

Subsequently, Kumar agreed to Khan's suggestion that BMC should verify the legal status of the crosses and only then take appropriate action after a month. On Tuesday, a delegation led by Vice Chairman of the Minority Commission, Abraham Mathai called on Khan seeking his intervention in the matter since the BMC was planning to demolish the crosses within 48 hours.

Member of the Mumbai Gaothan Panchayat, Neil Pereira, told us that local residents had taken up cudgels against the BMC since these were authorised crosses constructed by their ancestors in 1890 and 1920 to seek spiritual protection against the deadly plagues which took a huge toll on lives of local residents of these villages in Bandra.

" We had submitted the legal documents to the BMC in 2003 when the civic body had launched a crackdown on shrines and places of religious worship which were illegally standing on public property. However, on Monday we were shocked to hear from the local Deputy Municipal Commissioner Sudhir Naik that the BMC had misplaced the documents.

What irked the locals was that demolition notices were pasted on the crosses instead of serving the 48- hour deadline notice to the local custodian of the crosses or either inquiring or informing the church authorities about its demolition plan. BMC needed to have called for objections from local before pasting the order," said Pereira.

Khan, after giving a patient hearing to the delegation, telephonically spoke to the civic chief and asked him to review BMC's proposed move to demolish the crosses that stand in the way of the road- widening project in Bandra. Khan cautioned Kumar on the issue of BMC respecting the religious sentiments of the local Catholic population and asked him to cautiously act in the matter. He advised Kumar to closely examine whether the Supreme Court order issued to the Gujarat government on demolishing places of worship for executing infrastructure development project applies in the case of crosses in Bandra, too, which the BMC is relying upon in the crosses case.

" I am writing to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan requesting him to issue directives to the BMC to relocate the crosses demolished by the BMC and cautiously carrying out the demolishing operation without hurting the religious sentiments of the locals. I have even asked Kumar to ensure that the BMC examines the documents related to legal proof on the existence of the crosses with the city survey office, within a month. In cases where the legal crosses have been relocated in consultation with the local custodian, then documents should to be provided to the local custodian of the crosses as legal proof for future reference, " asserted Khan.