The fishermen of Nochikuppam have urged the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department to recover land belonging to an amman temple in the village.
According to K. Bharathi, a resident, the Sri Ellaiamman Pazhandiamman Temple was under the purview of the department with a committee comprising residents taking care of the day-to-day management for many years.
During this time, the land used to be given on lease or rent from time to time to earn revenue for the temple, which has the family deities of the fishermen of the village. Only the building was rebuilt recently. However, over the years, some unscrupulous elements managed to change the patta of these lands, he said.
Kabaddi Maran, another resident, said this led to confusion about on whose land the temple stood and there was even a case filed in the court. “We want our traditional rights to be safeguarded. The land should be recovered and a committee constituted to take care of the temple,” he said.
The residents had approached the Chennai District Collector in this regard. “We are afraid that at this rate we will lose our temple. Some kind of manipulation has taken place in the case of the land, which now seems to be registered in the name of a private builder in Coimbatore,” said another resident.
