By Jessy Joseph
New Delhi: The demolition of a church in south Delhi has upset the Syro-Malabar Catholics living in the national capital.
Father Jose Kannukuzhi, parish priest of Little Flower Church in Lado Sarai, said that on July 12 morning officials of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation came with three bulldozers and some 150 police personnel.
“They told me they would only demolish a hall adjacent to the church building. So I did not remove the sacred things from the church building,” the priest told Matters India.
As the news of the demolition spread through social media, parishioners came to the demolished church to protest. People from other parishes also gathered at the church compound and joined a Mass and a candle light protest late in the evening.
Monsignor Joseph Odanat, vicar general of Faridabad Syro-Malabar diocese, said the demolition was a “calculated hidden agenda of the local administration and the land mafia to evacuate us from there.”
He claimed the diocese had obtained a stay order in 2015. “We will go ahead with legal actions,” Monsignor Odanat told Matters India.
Archbishop Kuriakose Bharanikulangara of Faridabad expressed sadness and shock over the incident. “The authorities have razed a religious place and hurt the sentiments of the people,” he told Matters India.
The land was donated to the diocese 12 years ago for religious purpose of some 1,500 local Catholics.
Monsignor Odanat said the municipal administration had cited the reason for demolition as “encroachment of government’s agricultural land.”
“We had approached the officials several times for the conversion of land for religious use but the land mafia is so strong that we could not get it done,” the vicar general explained.
The district administration, in a statement, said the church was built on the gram sabha (village council) land, which was “encroached by some people by installment of religious structures.”
“Over time the encroached area started increasing in the garb of the expansion of the religious structure. Therefore, the Block Development Office tried to undertake the demolition of the unauthorized structures,” it said.
It added that the matter was earlier transferred to the “religious committee” upon the National Human Rights Commission’s directive.
The statement said the administration on March 3 received a letter from the Home Police Department directing them to demolish “the entire construction above the ground floor as well as portions of the ground where idols are not installed/placed without waiting for the decision of the Religious Committee.”
According to a notice dated July 7, the office of the Block Development Officer (South) directed the “encroachers/unauthorized occupants” to remove the encroachment within three days.
However, Pastor council member and lawyer John Thomas said the church never received the notice.
“Neither did we receive any notice nor were we given time to vacate the land. We were not even allowed to retrieve our sacred things,” Thomas told reporters.
According to him, the demolition was “a completely illegal and illicit act and we will take legal action against this.”
Further, let me ask the emotionally blackmailed (all devotees) desperately made to play the minority card.
Where was this unity of yours seen, when an aged Fr.Stanswamy was put in jail & suffering for months before he died while in custody ?
All these so called Bishop’s & church leaders were literally silent & non vocal ,. Cause old Fr.Stanswamy would not fetch them any revenue. Where as , yes the illegally built church & its man made statue’s in it named different saints, fitted with a slot at the bottom (alms/donation box ), will give a lot of continued flow of income/wealth.
What a SHAME……..
“Lord dont forgive them ,for they know what they are doing”
Well said Thomas Emmanuel. when it is proved as
encroachment, be it 10 years or 20 , its illegal. Be it church or any other religious structure. Its a public property. Shame, attitude of some of these priest are utter disgrace to our religion. Now they will use the faithful for support. What is needed is, they should be heavely penalized & rent recovered for illegally occupying the public property ,all these years.
Use statues of different saints,fitted below find a slot for offerings, pure emotional blackmail.
Hats off to the government who ever it be for these patriotic move.
On further thinking I feel that the Govt administration will not venture demolition of a church in the Capital of India without a valid reason. (However they should have resorted to discussion and other ways in the normal and decent way. ) The church should have kept the title of the land and permission to construct the church for production when necessary. Did they fail ? Without knowing fully it is difficult to judge. We will always be with truth and justice and the authority should be respected if they did the just.
Thomas Emmanuel…the last sentence clearly demonstrate what you know about Catholicism or what is sacred for them. If you don’t know, avoid making comments. No one forces you to believe anything. You can worship a stone or 33 Million Indian Gods and no one will care, but stop insulting devotees or their belief.
Even if the government claims it is illegal, they should have been sensitive to what is holy for Catholics. It is sad, today India is not democratic anymore but we are going rapidly the way Germany went in the hands of Hitler. Only God can forgive them.
Infringements of human rights to freedom of religious rights denied is against the Constitution of India
Shame for BJP it days r over god is great they will be no power with in few days we always for give
India would be burning with both international and national community getting at the throat of Modi if the demolition was done by a BJP ruled State. Kejariwal has done this. So reactions in print and visual medias are muted. Finest example of double standards at work.
In Kerala there is a term which roughly translates to “Cross farming” and refers to planting a cross on land that is classified as no-man’s land in revenue records. Over a period of time a church is built and ownership to the land claimed. Whichever party rules the State they bent over backwards to get everything regularised
The Delhi church appears to be a case of Kerala model in operation. .
Encroachments and illegal possessions are to be tackled by the Govt. In this case if the church is being used by 400 families during the last ten years and when a case is pending in a court, this action of sudden demolition is not justifiable. Everything in our Punyabhoomi will prolong for years and that is the main reason for all lawlessness, ,even rape and murder. Why ten years are required to ensure that the existence of the church is lawful or unlawful and decision taken. If decision was taken in the first months or year how the so called “ good governance” would have shined.
Another thing is that Delhi itself ( The Country has lakhs of illegal construction of worshipping places of many faiths) may have few thousands of illegal constructions and encroachments of public property by many faiths. Are they all destroyed ? Why a church is targeted as if they are used by illegal immigrants and not dutiful citizens ?
The church authorities usually known to scrutise even the baptism documents before solemnising wedding of a common faithful. Why did they fail to examine the title of the land before buying. Over and above that they got the church and ancillary buildings without proper sanction. Now they lament against the demolition.
The grand old Jerusalem temple too was demolished, yet reconstructed.
As for the monsignor’s despair for having not removed the holy things, poor guy doesn’t know all those articles were manmade and not dropped from heaven above.