Mumbai: The Christian community in the western suburbs is up in arms against the municipality’s decision to take over a part of church and school land for road widening and is determined to fight back.
Community members who stand united on this matter have been asked to write letters to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who also heads the National Advisory Council, her son Rahul Gandhi, Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Justice K.G. Balkrishnan, Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission and Brihanmumbai Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte.
“We have three demands before the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC),” Dolphy D’Souza, Spokesperson, Save Our Land Committee, told Gulf News. “We want the BMC to withdraw acquisition notices to Our Lady of Assumption Church and St Joseph’s High School, M.G. Road, Kandivili West, and save the school playground. Whilst another such notice to St Anthony’s Church, Malvani, Malad West, should also be withdrawn, we want the BMC to set up a cemetery for Christians on the eastern side of the western suburbs without delay,” he said.
Though a delegation of concerned parishioners and others recently met Deputy Municipal Commissioner, Sudhir Naik, who suggested that they take up the matter with the commissioner, the community has in the meantime decided to approach the Gandhis and other authorities. A peace rally on December 1 is also being planned to mobilise public opinion against the BMC’s plan with a BJP legislator Vijay Girkar offering the Christians full support.
St Anthony’s Church, which happens to be included in the recent BMC heritage list as a Grade II (A) heritage structure, was served a notice dated September 1, to hand its open plot, which has a grotto, a compound wall and a building where priests reside, for road widening. Parish priest Father Austen Norris has replied to the BMC pointing out that the notice is not applicable as the church is among the BMC’s very own heritage list.
“Our Lady of Assumption Church and St Joseph’s School at Kandivili have been asked to surrender a part of the cemetery, school ground and church for widening of the Poisar River which has now turned into a stinking gutter,” says D’Souza. “Over 1700 children stand to lose their playground and we also stand to lose hundreds of graves of our ancestors. It is unfortunate that the BMC wants to widen the river at this site where it is the widest as compared to other locations. At several places there is no space for the flow of water as it has been encroached by slums and piled with garbage and debris.”
Though alternate methods have been suggested by experts for cleaning and deepening the river, “all scientific reason has fallen on deaf ears,” D’Souza says the church has indeed given away land in the past for road widening without claiming any compensation, but even that has been encroached.
