The fate of the enthusiastic Revenue Department drive against encroachment of public lands in Kerala's famous Munnar hill resort has slipped into uncertainty with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressing strong displeasure at the razing of a giant Cross erected in encroached public land at Pappathichola in Devikulam Taluk by officials on Thursday morning.
The officials used earthmoving machines to bring down the 15-feet tall steel Cross erected by a Thrissur-based Christian group, Spirit in Jesus, on a reinforced concrete pedestal at the summit of a hill in Pappathichola. The operation was carried out under the cover of prohibitory orders placed on the area and security provided by about a hundred of police personnel.
The security cover and prohibitory orders had become necessary in the context of reported warning by the police's Intelligence wing that a consortium of political parties, mainly the local CPI(M), land mafia and conniving Revenue officials might forcefully block any effort to retrieve grabbed lands in Munnar.
The anti-encroachment team also torched a couple of sheds Spirit in Jesus had built in the vicinity of the cross and a building meant to house a church was also demolished. The officials' team had taken several hours to cover the distance of a few kilometers between their base and the hill top due to the blocks created by the people along their path.
The Revenue officials had reached the hill-top at Pappathichola after facing several difficulties caused by believers belonging to the Christian group who had parked vehicles across their path and had dug pits on the road. The Cross was erected in a part of a stretch of 2,300 acres of allegedly encroached land.
Marxist Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan came down heavily on the Revenue officials for their act and ordered immediate stoppage of the exercise but the demolition had been completed by that time. Pinarayi said the officials should have shown extra care in the act as the matter involved religious groups. “What crime did the Cross commitIJ” he is reported to have asked.
The Chief Minister's office, obviously acting upon complaints from Munnar's CPI(M) leaders who have been furiously opposing the anti-encroachment drive, reportedly reprimanded the Idukki District Collector. Retrieval, and not demolition, was Government's policy, Pinarayi told the district authorities.
“Some measures taken by the Idukki district authorities for retrieving grabbed land in Munnar were a bit misleading. A Cross erected there had been demolished as part of the exercise. The Government had expressed its displeasure to the district authorities in the morning itself,” Pinarayi said in Kottayam on Thursday evening.
Sources said the officials had razed the Cross in order to spread a clear message that encroachments would not be allowed at any cost even if these were in the name of religion and political parties. An enthusiastic anti-encroachment drive in Munnar in May, 2007 had ended in a fiasco due to fierce protests from political parties.
The regional leadership of the CPI(M) lashed out at the officials for the operation in Pappathichola. While KK Jayachandran, CPI(M)'s Idukki district secretary, termed the operation as an act of official vandalism, Marxist MlA S Rajendran of Devikulam said the police and the Revenue officials were trying to scare the people and bring shame to the lDF regime.
Meanwhile, Union Minister CR Choudhary, who had visited Munnar recently, has presented his report to the Centre stating that the hill resort is in an extremely dangerous situation.
The buildings in Munnar were in a precarious situation and rescue operation would be almost impossible if a tragedy occurred, it said.
Though there was no need of anxiety about the possibility of an accident of the magnitude of the Uttarakhand tragedy, the narrow roads in Munnar could make it difficult for even the armed forces to reach accident sites. The report also pointed out that the soil in Munnar was of loose nature and the methods used for constructing giant structures were unscientific.