An enforcement team of the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) on Saturday demolished almost all parts of the Bajrangbali Mutt, also known as Patsani Mutt, at Khandagiri constructed on Government land allegedly encroached by local BJD MP Prasanna Patsani, despite stiff resistance from the locals. The team, however, left the Hanuman Temple in the mutt premises unharmed.
Though the team, which had arrived at the spot accompanied by police, bulldozers et al developed cold feet for a few hours as hundreds of locals blocked the road leading to the mutt by setting tyres ablaze and staged a dharna on the road, the team managed to demolish the mutt later. “Encroacher Raghunath Das has lost the case, and we are here to make the land encroachment-free. Das has lost the case under the Odisha Development Authorities Act, 1982 (ODA Act). The BDA had given him one-month time to vacate the land. It is more than a month and a half since then,” said an official of the enforcement team.
Das, however, said he had approached the BDA for more time. As the BDA did not allow it, he had later appealed against it in the High Court. BDA Enforcement Officer Deba Prasad Dash told reporters that Das is going against the court order and taking the law into his own hand by arranging some antisocial elements to block the encroachment drive. Patsani is learnt to have earlier written a letter to the Director, Estates to regularise the land in favour of the mutt.
Earlier on December 11, 2014, the General Administration Department had intimated the BDA and the Central Enforcement Monitoring Committee through a written communiqué about the encroachment. The Government had then asked these departments to free the land from encroachment, construct a boundary wall and put up a signboard saying it is Government property. Besides, it had asked the two agencies to submit an action-taken report on the order.
While claiming that he had nothing to do with the mutt, Patsani said no mutt should be demolished. “I don’t know about the demolition. But as a general rule, no mutt should be demolished since it involves people’s religious sentiments,” he said. Asked about his role in the mutt, the Bhubaneswar MP said; “I have nothing to do with the mutt, except that I go there occasionally to pray. I don’t own an inch of the land on which the mutt stands nor have I applied for the allotment of the land,” he said.