CHENNAI, INDIA, May 31, 2011 (IBN live): The devotees who thronged the Mallikeshwarar Temple in Ashok Nagar on Monday evening wore a look of silent relief. The shrine, believed to be around 1000 years old, had been under the threat of demolition, to make way for a Chennai Metro station.
But intervention by civil society and local advocacy groups seems to have saved the temple.
The Hindu Religious & Charitable Endowments Department (HR&CE), which administers the temple, is understood to have reached an understanding with the top officials of the Chennai Metro Rail Limited that “not even a millimeter of the temple would be touched.”
The decision to this effect reportedly came after the new chief minister, J Jayalalithaa, asked officials to ensure that no religious structures were demolished in the course of the Chennai Metro construction.
The large crowd of devotees that had gathered at the temple for special services on the occasion of the auspicious pradosham on Monday, was treated to a special discourse in Tamil on the impending destruction of the shrine and its eventual escape. While some present credited this to the intervention of Lord Shiva himself, others noted that the devotees who had been visiting the temple for decades, had warned the officials against harming the temple.