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Wednesday November 10, 2010
New twist in temple row
By OH ING YEEN
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SUBANG JAYA: The controversy over the tearing down of a temple store in Puchong that led to a man setting himself on fire on Monday has now turned into a dispute between two sets of authorities of a Tamil primary school next door. While the temple committee says it was willing to return the land where the store had stood, it also claimed it had not received any official letter from the school authorities about wanting the land back. The Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple committee secretary K. Dharmalingam claimed they were willing to return the land.
The man sets himself on fire in the protest.
“We built a storeroom, a toilet and a kitchen to do the cooking on the land after receiving verbal permission from the previous headmaster 10 years ago. “We are well aware that the land belongs to the school,” he said. He denied claims by the school board of directors chairman Nagamuthu Periasamy that the temple was notified about the intention to take back the land six months ago. “While members of the school board told us verbally that they wanted the land back to build kindergartens, there was no official letter.
We only received a letter from the Subang Jaya Municipal Council on Oct 26 giving us seven days to demolish the building,” he said. Dharmalingam said the matter got confusing when the school PTA informed the temple that they did not want the land back as it was situated near a septic tank and that it would be noisy to build kindergartens there. In fact, he said, the man who had torched himself was a member of the PTA M. Chakragunasegaran.
He suffered burns to the body and face and was listed as critical at the Serdang Hospital. Witnesses said the man had shouted “don’t demolish” while about 200 Subang Jaya Municipal Council workers, policemen and Rela members began to tear down the building at about 9.30am. He then set himself ablaze before being rescued by members of the public. Nagamuthu, meanwhile, rebutted the statement that the land occupied by the temple was not conducive for a kindergarten.
“Although the land is situated above the temple’s septic tank, it should not be there in the first place. We have informed the Indah Water Konsortium to treat and remove it. He also refuted the temple committee’s statement that they were not given official letters. “Since 2007, we have officially informed them about the school’s ownership of the land and the temple agreed to return it within seven days whenever the school needs it back,” he said.
