On October 11, the largest church of Jaunpur, Jeevan Jyoti Church, was demolished by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government. The famous Jeevan Jyoti Christian Religious Prayer Centre, located in Bhulandih village in Jaunpur district, had be a sore point with the Hindu hardliner state government. As per a report of Amar Ujala, a total of seven bulldozers had been used for the demolition of the Jeevan Jyoti Church. The report further provided that the roads leading up to the prayer centre were also sealed amid tight security. The action, which started at five in the evening, continued till late night.
Many videos have surfaced from the demolition site, depicting the bulldozers being at work. As per the report, during the time of the demolition, forces from all the police stations of the circle including SDM Neha Mishra and Additional SP Brijesh Kumar were also present at the spot.
The bogey of encroachment on government
Unsurprisingly, the excuse of the Jeevan Jyoti Church being built on government land was used by the Uttar Pradesh government to justify the demolition. But even before the demolition, the prayer place had been locked. As per the media reports, a complaint about encroachment of government land by the said prayer place was made in the recent times. The afore-mentioned complaint was allegedly made in the month of September. To resolve the complaint, a notice was pasted at the gate by setting a time limit for measurement a week ago under the leadership of Naib Tehsidar Hussain Ahmed from the revenue personnel team, a report of TejasToday provided.
The TejasToday report had alleged that an incident of stone pelting with the revenue team officials took place on the scheduled day of measurement. As per the report, when the revenue team reached the spot along with the police force, under the leadership of Naib Tehsildar, they found the gate locked. When no one was found and the lock could not be opened, the revenue team started returning from the spot. On the way, around 3 dozen masked youths on bikes reached the spot and reportedly started pelting stones targeting the revenue team. The stone pelting resulted in injuring certain members of the team as well as the policemen. The youth also pelted stones at the revenue team’s vehicle, broke the glass of the vehicle and fled from the spot.
As a consequence of this incident, to avoid any other untoward incident, the place of prayer remained locked.
This story was originally published in sabrangindia.in. Read the full story here