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District in Kerala tense over plan to demolish 14 crosses

D Jose in Trivandrum

Kothapara in Idukki district of Kerala is tense, with the forest department preparing to demolish 14 crosses, put up by the Christhuraj Church, in the Idukki wildlife sanctuary.

The department's plan follows dismissal of a petition filed by church trustees seeking to restrain the forest officials from removing the crosses. The high court permitted the department to remove the crosses with assistance from the police.

The petitioners had approached the court after the department tried to demolish the crosses last November. They contended that parishioners have been conducting the Way of the Cross for 50 years, without harm to the forest or wildlife.

Fr Mathew Pandyamakkal, a former parish priest of Christhuraj Church, claimed that it has been a practice on important occasions like Good Friday. The two-km hilly stretch was found ideal and "it did not harm the forest as the area is rocky", he said.

He said Christians in Kerala have been using similar hills for the Way of the Cross and no one objected. He alleged that the department swung into action after members of the Sangh Parivar opposed the practice.

However, the authorities maintain that the crosses came up only in 1999. They suspect that the concrete crosses in the sanctuary were put up by vested interests.

A senior forest range officer told rediff.com that there were no crosses in the area when the department built walls around the 200-square km wildlife sanctuary in 1996. "No one from the church had objected to construction of the boundary walls," he added.

"The parishioners had also not staked claim to the area when a joint verification was conducted in 1977 to demarcate forest area," the officer said.

Senior officials suspect that the church may have "encroached" upon forestland to establish it as a pilgrim centre. This, they said, could not be allowed, as it would affect the eco-system and harm the wildlife.

The officials think that the Kothapara case is similar to the Nilackal issue, where the church had sought to erect a shrine after unearthing a stone cross from the forests close to the Sabarimala Hindu pilgrimage centre. The Sangh Parivar resisted the move.

A showdown was averted when senior bishops decided not to construct a shrine in the area.

Some from the church believe that the Nilackal issue is the creation of some fundamentalists. The cross, they claimed was installed by Apostle St Thomas disappeared when the Kerala government proposed to send it for archaeological investigations.

A priest, who suspected the hand of the fundamentalists in the disappearance, said the cross might have been planted. Many would have believed that the cross was of St Thomas' time since there is a belief among Syrian Christians of Kerala that a Christian community established by St Thomas existed in Nilackal.

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