Mumbai: Members of the Parsi community are thinking of moving the High Court demanding the realignment of Mumbai’s Metro III project fearing damage to their religious shrines. Members of the community on Sunday gathered near the ancient Bhikha Behram Well, located adjacent to Azad Maidan, which Parsis consider a sacred place of worship, in south Mumbai.
The Metro III tunnel will also pass below the Dadysett Agiary at Hutatma Chowk in Fort besides the Behram Well. One of the underground tunnels of the ambitious project will pass under Jagannath Sunkersett Road, on which two fire temples are located – Wadiaji Atash Behram and Anjuman Atash Behram. Community members feel the holy fire could also be desecrated due to the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz line and the Behram Well may get damaged.
Also Read: Public has no confidence in you, make efforts to alter perception: Bombay High Court to MMRC
The Zoroastrians are demanding that the route of the project, being implemented by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRC), be changed to avoid any damage to their Agiaries. Demanding a change in the Metro route at Girgaum in south Mumbai, the community recently generated an online petition raising objections to the alignment passing below their fire temples. “Two fire temples are going to be affected by this project. The Metro which will go through here (underneath the Behram Well) should not spoil the streams of water,” said one of the protesters Farokh Gutla.
An MMRC spokesperson had earlier said that the tunnelling for Metro III is not directly below the well. Once completed, the 33.5-km long line will connect Cuffe Parade business district in the extreme south of the city to SEEPZ in the north-central with 26 underground and one at-grade station.
