Friday, January 25, 2013

Christians angered over illegal crosses

Christians in Mumbai has strongly objected to the civic corporation’s move to classify crosses on public properties as illegal structures.

“The entire blame for the mess rests squarely with the civic legal department,” said Godfrey Pimenta, vice-president of the Bombay East Indian Association.

“It is unimaginable that protected religious structures, which are in existence even prior to the birth of the Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) and are listed as heritage structures, are now suddenly deemed illegal by the BMC,” he said.

There is nothing more blasphemous than the present categorization done by the committee that has labeled almost every religious structure within the BMC limits as illegal.

Pimenta said if the government could accord status of protected structure to residential and commercial premises in existence prior to January 1, 1995 and subsequently extended to January 1, 2000 then why the same cannot be granted to all religious structures.

Pimenta alleged that the municipal commissioner had been kept in the dark about the legality of the structures and hence the notice of December 28 terming all structures as encroachments.