HYDERABAD: The Rashtriya Vanara Sena Mission, an organisation to ‘safeguard temples across India’ has urged the people of Telangana to raise their voices in support of protecting the lost temple lands and archaeological monuments in the State that have been illegally encroached upon.
In a media statement on Sunday, the organisation’s president, N Ram Reddy, alleged that over the past several years, the land owned by Hindu temples, worth thousands of crores, has become an easy target for land-grabbing by bureaucrats and politicians affiliated with the ruling party.
Referring to government records, he stated, “According to official data, more than 23 per cent (20,124.03 acres out of 87,235.39 acres) of temple lands have been encroached upon. However, upon reviewing the audit records of 19 temples, we discovered that almost 80 per cent (6,343 acres out of 7,976 acres) of these temples have encroached.”
Reddy alleged that the State government sold off many temple lands to repay debts and allocated temple lands for non-Hindu purposes under the directives of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his son KT Rama Rao.
Furthermore, he expressed concern over the allocation of 1,148.12 acres of land, worth approximately Rs 2,000 crore, belonging to the ancient Sri Sita Rama Chandra Swamy temple in Sitarampur village of Shabad mandal in Rangareddy for an Electrical Vehicle Park, which he deemed contrary to established legal principles.