The National Highways Authority of India has directed the Mysuru civic body to demolish a bus stop with dome-shaped shelters, saying that the structure had been constructed in an unauthorised manner, ANI reported on Thursday.
The highways authority issued a notice to the Mysore City Corporation commissioner on November 15 – just a day after Prathap Simha, the Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Mysuru-Kodagu constituency, threatened to bulldoze dome-shaped bus stops, claiming that they looked like mosques.
“If there is a big dome structure with two small domes on either side, it is considered a mosque,” he had said at an event in Mysuru, according to IANS. “I have given three to four days’ deadline to the concerned engineers to demolish the structures. If they don’t demolish them, I will take a JCB [bulldozer] myself and bring them down.”
In its notice, the National Highways Authority of India mentions “unauthorised occupation” as reason for the demolition order, but does not provide details about any sort of encroachment. Instead, the notice claims that the structure had been constructed to achieve “controversial kind of issues”, and that they had led to “communal issues”.
“...The bus stop has been constructed even though many times our engineers have stopped the work within the National Highway Right of Way,” the notice added.
The Mysore City Corporation and the Karnataka Rural Infrastructure Development Limited have been ordered to demolish the Nanjangud/Ooty National Highway bus stop within a week, failing which action will be initiated.
Meanwhile, BJP MLA SA Ramadass claimed that the domes were modelled on the Mysuru Palace and were designed to conserve the city’s heritage, the Deccan Herald reported. Ramadass is the MLA from the Krishnaraja Assembly constituency, within which the bus stop is located.
“False facts like the contractor is a Muslim are being spread on social media,” he said. “The design, based on Mysuru palace, is wrongly being projected as that of a mosque. I have complained about this to the city police commissioner.”
Ramadass also denied allegations that kalashas, or Hindu ceremonial pots, were placed on the domes in a hurry on the night of November 13.
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