Chennai: Around 80 members of Hindu Munnani protested at Tambaram RDO office demanding the eviction of a church allegedly built on Keelkattalai lake bed.
Protests drew attention as a stretcher carrying a corpse-like structure was used to highlight the negligence of revenue department officials.
According to the members, the church on the public works department authorised land worth around '800 crore, is a threat to Keelkattalai lake located on the Pallavaram-Thoraipakkam Radial Road.
“Incessant complaints to the labour commissioner and authorities of revenue department fell on deaf ears, which provoked us to demonstrate,” said N. Ravindran, district president of the organisation.
Although the property was once evicted, it has come up with CCTV camera and security personnel this time, the members alleged.
Failing to clear the property in a week, the members said that they would construct a temple on the lake and donate three cents of land to Hindus.
A team of revenue officials, PWD officials along with the labour commissioner reportedly inspected the lake premises.
When DC contacted labour commissioner P. Amudha, who is in-charge of the eviction programme, she said the property is not in the natural course of the water body.
However, trusted sources from revenue department linked the tension to the eviction programme. “Two encroached temples including the Varadarajapuram temple in Sri Perumbur were cleared which could have aggravated the members,” a source said.
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