Chennai: Residents, HM activists prevent illegal quarrying in temple tank

Chennai: Devotees and members of the Hindu Munnani daringly confronted a group of persons clandestinely removing lorry loads of sand and silt from the tank belonging to the ancient Kasi Viswanathar temple at Ayanavaram, here, and forced four of them to flee.

The gang allegedly removed the sand and silt from the tank under the cover of darkness, quite furtively, and their luck ran out in the wee hours of November 25 when a lorry laden with the sand capsised all of a sudden. The unusual noise woke up people around and soon residents, rushed to the tank only to see the sand being loaded in lorries. To their shock, they found a huge crater in the tank, caused by the removal of huge quantity of sand.

“When we accosted the gang, four drivers ran away. While the temple authorities possessed only an abstract estimation and not a work order, the police initially declined to register a case. But after we insisted the police agreed to provide us CSR,” says ‘Pasuthai’ Ganesan, Hindu Munnani media coordinator. At least 100 lorry-loads of sand and silt have been removed thus creating a huge crater of 12 feet deep, he claimed. The unidentified men could have removed the sand on Saturday night too.

Enquiries by the Hindu Munnani members revealed that one of the drivers had an order from the Kancheepuram district collector granting permission for sand quarrying in Perumbakkam and he indulged in quarrying in the temple tank here. “But the irony is this man could have shown this letter granting permission to quarry on November 27 at Perumbakkam, to the police here and had removed the sand here,” Ganesan added.

Strangely it was only on October 2, coinciding with the Gandhi Jayanthi, the locals and Hindu Munnani activists had cleaned the tank inspired by the BJP-led Central government’s Swachh Bharat campaign.

On Monday, members led by Hindu Munnani State secretary T. Manoharan petitioned the Chennai collector seeking appropriate action.