Andhra Pradesh News

Villagers file complaint against giant cross erected adjacent to ancient Hindu temple

November 29, 2020
The Commune

The residents of Dekanakonda Village of Kurichedu Mandal in Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh have filed a complaint to the district administration against the unauthorized and illegal erection of a giant cross adjacent to an ancient Hindu Temple.

The Sri Valli Subrahmanyeswara Swamy Temple at Dekanakonda is said to have been built in the 12th century and is believed to be atleast 700 years old.

In March of this year, renovation work commenced for the temple which for long remained in a dilapidated condition with an 18 feet high sthupam (shikara) being installed in July.

During this time, a giant cross was found near a boulder that is adjacent to the temple. It was found that a few Christian evangelicals had encroached the land and erected a cross without getting any permission.

As per a 2012 Government Order (G.O.) issued by the Panchayat Raj & Rural Development Department of the Andhra Pradesh Government, prior permission must be obtained from the District Collector to construct any religious structure/worshipping centre.

In light of this, the villagers of Dekanakonda wrote to the District Collector demanding the removal of the cross erected illegally.

In the letter to the District Collector, a copy of which was accessed by The Commune, the villagers mentioned that their village had no Christian population and that some unidentified outsiders had erected the cross surreptitiously with malicious intentions. The villagers stated in the letter that these unidentified people were trying to build a Church just adjacent to the ancient Hindu in an attempt to incite religious tensions.

The letter also noted that despite their earlier complaints to the Tahsildar and Station House Officer of Kurichedu Mandal, the cross remains as is and that the unauthorized Church construction was still going on.

The Legal Right Protection Forum, a legal activism organization working for securing the rights of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe comuunities, helped in drafting the letter to the Collector.

Speaking to The Commune, A.S. Santhosh, the Working President of Legal Rights Protection Forum said that church planting is rampant in the state of Andhra Pradesh where Christian missionaries randomly erect crosses on hillocks and encroach the land. He said that once the missionaries plant these churches they go about proselytizing in the nearby villages to convert gullible people to Christianity.