Damage to 2 Madaripur Temples
HC orders fresh probe
The High Court yesterday asked the law secretary to form a committee led by a deputy secretary of his ministry to investigate the incident of damage to two century-old Hindu temples at Palita of Rajoir upazila in Madaripur.
During the hearing of a suo moto rule, the court said the deputy secretary make a comprehensive probe report by talking with the people concerned of the temples -- one of Goddess Kali and another of God Gopal, and submit the report to it by April 8.
The HC bench of Justice AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury Manik and Jahangir Hossain Selim ordered the deputy commissioner (DC) of Madaripur to maintain status quo in the temples area till further orders.
It directed the DC to allow the Hindu devotees to perform religious functions, including Dol Purnima, at the temples on March 8.
The people involved with the temples cannot be disturbed in any manner, it said.
The court came up with the order after an intervener of the case expressed no confidence in a part of a probe report submitted by the DC of Madaripur to the HC, saying that the temples were not demolished by any authority or any person, but had been damaged due to lack of proper maintenance.
Advocate Manzill Murshid, counsel for Pulin Baidya, one of two Sebaits (worshippers) of the temples, yesterday challenged the DC's report before the HC, saying that he had earlier presented to the court some photographs on the demolition of the temples and felling of trees on the temple land.
The HC asked the DC to investigate the incident on the basis of those photographs and prosecute the perpetrators behind the incident, but the DC had prepared the probe report without talking with the people concerned and the perpetrators were saved, he said.
Deputy Attorney General ABM Altaf Hossain told the court that the Madaripur administration had already evicted one Nirmal Halder, who had been occupying the land of the temples for several years illegally.
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