BENGALURU: Acting on a complaint that more than 2,000 graves of the Hindu community were destroyed to build a Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) office and a sports complex at the behest of political leaders, the Lokayukta police on Wednesday conducted a spot inspection of the property at JJ Nagar in Chamarajpete.
Lokayukta Superintendent of Police Lakshmi Ganesh and the team spoke to the complainant S Bhaskaran and other petitioners and later sought details from locals to gauge the ground reality and know the veracity of the complaint before filing a report by April 12.
Speaking to reporters after the Lokayukta inspection, Bhaskaran claimed that as per the BBMP health department documents, the property was a Hindu burial ground with thousand of graves. But a BBMP office came up here a few years ago, and now a sports complex is being built at property numbers 136-10034-115 and 136-10034-117 at a cost of Rs 1 crore. The property was a graveyard belonging to Kannada- and Tamil-speaking Hindus, he said.
“From 2011 to 2019, 5,800 deceased were buried here. But now, manual counting shows that over 3,000 samadhis are missing. We want the missing mortal remains to be traced and FIR registered against persons responsible for this,” said Bhaskaran. He added that after the inspection, a report will be filed by the Lokayukta police and based on the report, the further course of action will be decided.
However, the locals differed from the claims made by petitioners. According to them, the area was a small hillock that was owned by zamindars and it was not a graveyard.
“About 4,500 families are living in Janata Colony, which is next to the Hindu burial ground. A few decades ago, the entire surrounding area was called Padarayanpura. After delimitation, it was split into three wards -- JJ Nagar ward no. 136, Padarayanapura ward no. 135 and Royapuram ward no. 137. The site, which the petitioner claims to be a graveyard, is next to Janatha Colony and is not a graveyard. I am saying this as I grew up here. If at all any person comes and destroys the graves, as a Hindu will I keep quiet?” said Chandrashekhar, a resident.