SL Army threatens to destroy Sivan temple to construct Buddhist Vihara in Ki'linochchi

[TamilNet, Monday, 02 April 2012, 18:38 GMT]
The occupying Sri Lanka Army is said to have planned to demolish the historical Chivanakar Siva temple in Uruththirapuram in Ki'linochchi district and to construct a Buddhist Vihare in that site, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian S. Sritharan has said. The Tamil parliamentarian has urged the Colombo government to stop the demolition of the Hindu temple. Around 40 soldiers of the occupying SLA came to the temple on Friday 27 March evening in three vehicles and entered the temple without the permission from the chief priest and desecrated the temple by walking in their military boots and threatened to destroy the temple and construct a Buddhist vihara at the site.

Thereafter they searched the entire temple including the core centre known as Moolasthanam under the pretext that they received reports that a Buddha statue had been hidden inside the temple.

Failing to locate it, they deployed two policemen and four army men to guard the temple stating that Buddhist scriptures and archaeological findings were buried in the heap of bricks found near the Saiva temple.

Saivaites in the area had rushed to the site and protested against the occupying SL Army desecrating the temple. But, the SL army had threatened the people not to divulge about the search to anyone, especially the media.

The army personnel then left the temple after saying that they would destroy the temple and construct a Buddhist Vihara there.