Telangana Minister Konda Surekha has warned that she will not be silenced if EOs who protect the lands of God are attacked by the land grabbers. The attack on Ramadevi, the EO of the Bhadrachalam temple, who went to inspect the lands of Sri Seetha Ramachandraswamy in Bhadrachalam, which are under encroachment in neighboring Andhra Pradesh, by encroachers has created a stir in both states.
Minister Surekha strongly condemned the attack on Ramadevi and warned that the PD Act will be invoked if endowment lands are occupied anywhere in the state against the rules. She recalled that she had made this clear in the past. She clarified that it is not reasonable to attack Ramadevi, the EO who stopped the land of the Bhadrachalam Ramalayam in Purushothapatnam (AP) while it was being occupied.
Endowment Minister Surekha requested the AP government and the Chief Minister of the state, Chandrababu Naidu, to take special initiative in this regard and resolve the issue. Bhadradri Rama temple has about 1,300 acres of land in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, of which 889.5 acres is in Purushothapatnam, Etapaka Mandal, Alluri Seetharamaraju District. Most of the land in Purushothapatnam has been encroached upon.
According to the High Court verdict, the temple has rights over this land. The people of Purushothapatnam are not taking these into consideration. The temple staff reached there after receiving information that construction work was being done with pillars on the way to enter Purushothapatnam.
EO Ramadevi tried to convince them not to build houses without permission and that this was completely Lord Rama’s land. She revealed that there were land titles in the name of the God as per the court verdicts. However, without listening to the EO’s objections, all the land grabbers attacked her en masse. She lost consciousness with this attack.
Alarmed by this sudden development, locals and police rushed her to a private hospital in Bhadrachalam town for emergency treatment. She is currently recovering. Bhadradri residents say that if the four villages that are around Bhadrachalam are merged with Telangana, Lord Rama’s lands can be saved from being encroached upon.
During the formation of Telangana state, 7 mandals of Telangana were merged with AP in the name of the Polavaram project, and even though there was no Polavaram inundation, the surrounding villages that were considered Bhadrachalam town were merged with AP. With this merger, the Bhadrachalam temple lands came under the jurisdiction of Andhra Pradesh. Since then, the locals have started illegally acquiring lands.