Don't demolish shrines for central projects: Manish Sisodia

New Delhi: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia appealed to the Lieutenant Governor on Monday, saying that temples, tombs and gurudwaras associated with the faith of the people should not be demolished for other development works, including various housing projects of the Central Government in Delhi.This will hurt the faith of millions of people and create law and order problems in the city.The Delhi Police itself is mentioning this in its report.

He appealed to LG that everything is possible in modern architecture-engineering in the 21st century.When we are so sensitive about trees that when we build a house or a structure, we work to save the tree by changing its design.Similarly, in order to save these temples, shrines and gurudwaras associated with the religious sentiments of lakhs of people, the design of these projects should also be changed. He said that there should be development and we all are in favor of it, but it should also be kept in mind that people's faith should not be hurt.

Sisodia said that the Lieutenant Governor had issued a press release a few days ago alleging that I am sitting with files to demolish many temples, mazars, gurudwaras and am not taking any decision on them,because of this, a lot of work is stopped.

He shared that in all, I came across 19 files, including 67 temples, six mazars and one gurdwara marked for demolition.The development works for which these religious buildings have been marked for demolition include several flyover-road construction projects, including housing by the central government.

The Deputy Chief Minister said that "I studied the 1-1 structure closely and assessed its impact, as it is all related to the religious sentiments of the people. Also read the police reports about them.It is written in almost all of them that thousands of people have faith associated with these temples, tombs, gurudwaras. Thousands of people come here every day.