Committee to recover temple lays siege to minister's residence

2 April 2010, 18:00 PM

A Correspondent, Madaripur

Puran Bazar Kali Temple Recovery Committee laid siege to the residence of Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan at Madaripur town yesterday demanding the temple be recovered from the grips of encroachers in line with the deputy commissioner's order. The committee members and people from Hindu community chanted slogans there and demanded immediate implementation of the order. However, none was there at the minister's residence at that time. They said the administration as well as the minister is dilly-dallying the move to recover the temple from the encroachers despite having an order from the Deputy Commissioner's (DC) office. After laying siege to the residence from 8:00am to 9:00am, the committee members along with people of all walks of life brought out a procession and put up a barricade on the highway in front of Deputy Commissioner's (DC) residence for half an hour. Later, they staged a demonstration beside the highway where they said the DC has to say who holds the authority to implement the order. They have been staging demonstration from March 28 demanding the temple be recovered. Committee President Narayan Chandra Sheel, Vice President Ratan Kumar Das, General Secretary Babulal Kangsha Banik and other leaders spoke. The DC office issued an order to evict all the illegal occupants from the temple in 2006. Later, one Abdur Rahim Morol filed a writ petition with the High Court (HC) challenging the order. But the HC in February this year cancelled the petition.