Hyderabad: Deputy engineer of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA), V Ravinder, has filed a complaint against Bajrang Dal members for attacking a church and threatening workers to expand a road towards the premises of a church in Janwada village in Chevella district recently.
On Tuesday, February 13, a mob of 200 men from the Yadav, Mudiraj, and other dominant caste members of the Backward Class (BCs) caste associated with the Bajrang Dal, an extremist Hindutva organisation, stormed the church after a dispute over road expansion.
The mob chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogans vandalised the church, causing damage to the crucifix. Twenty people, including two children, were hurt when the incident that happened inside the church. Three of them were hospitalised.
So far, 11 suspects have been taken into custody by the police over the incident.
According to the FIR filed at the Mokila Police station, V Ravinder, the person in-charge of road widening, was approached by Talari Maisah, former Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituency (MPTC) member of the Congress, and Goudiicherla Narsimha, husband of the former village sarpanch, from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), to extend the road towards the church compound.
“The assistant engineer made the markings for the 24-foot road widening work and left the place at around 6 pm. Later, I received a call from Goudicherla Narsimha, who requested to extend the road up to the church wall. I denied it, but he did not listen. The given marking was removed, and the road was extended up to the church wall by threatening the workers. They ignored the orders of higher officials and damaged the road,” the official said in his complaint.
The accused were charged with many offenses under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) after the police invoked Section 3 of the Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act (PDPPA) against them.
Following Goudicherla Narsimha’s countercomplaint, the police registered a case and took five Dalit Christians into custody. He said that some twenty members of the Dalit community had gathered unlawfully, interfered with road construction, and assaulted him and other people, injuring them with stones.
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