Coimbatore: Over 1,000 Hindu Munnani cadre staged a demonstration here on Wednesday urging the district administration and police to follow rules and the stop the construction of a church at Kalapatti.

The organisation’s state general secretary Kadeswara Subramanian said that the church was coming up within 200 metres of the Mariamman temple, which was against rules and against the recommendation of the Venugopal Commission.

He said that the church was coming up on a 16-cent ‘poromboke’ land, which was against rules. The inaction of the police had led to unrest in the Hindu community in the area as residents of over 20 villages worshipped the temple deity Mariamman.

Mr. Subramanian also said that the church committee members had moved against a Coimbatore court order in the issue and the Madras High Court had ordered the officials to talk to both the parties for a solution, The Hindu reported.

But the officials failed to act. Using the inaction and the imposition of the model code of conduct, the church committee members restarted the construction. This was not an isolated incident, he said.