BMC seeks cemetery land in Bandra for road-widening

Mumbai: The H West ward office in Bandra West has issued a notice to the owners of 12 structures to surrender their land for road-widening, among these a Catholic cemetery and a Bene Israeli Jewish cemetery

Mumbai: The H West ward office in Bandra West has issued a notice to the owners of 12 structures to surrender their land for road-widening, among these a Catholic cemetery and a Bene Israeli Jewish cemetery. Although the BMC has asked for only a small portion of land, this has not gone down well with the Catholic community in Bandra West who are up in arms and refusing to hand over the land.

Mumbai, India - January 05, 2023: BMC serves notice to take possession of part of the premises of St. Peters Church Seaside Cemetery and Bandra Jewish Cemetery lying within the regular line of the public street off Kadeshwari Mata Mandir Road, near Mount Mary Church, Bandra (West), in Mumbai, India, on Thursday, January 05, 2023. (Photo by Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times) (Satish Bate/HT PHOTO)

Father Frazer Mascarenhas, parish priest, St Peter’s Church, told HT that the seaside cemetery at the foot of the Mount Mary steps was over 100 years old. Back then, it was an isolated area and the sea lapped at the walls behind the cemetery. Later, a Jewish cemetery came up by its side. In between the two cemeteries is a small road called Kadeshwari Mata Mandir Marg, which the civic body proposes to widen.

“The BMC has served us a notice to cut a little corner slice of our cemetery, which will take away several graves at the wall and will also take up a whole slice of the Jewish cemetery,” said Father Mascarenhas. “Graves and cemeteries have religious and emotional connotations. Ours is an old cemetery with about 475 graves. To take away graves like this is to impinge on the sentiments of our people.”

Father Mascarenhas said that the community was sending a representation to the BMC to withdraw that notice. “They have an alternative parallel road from where they can take land,” he said. “For the Jews too, graves are sacred, and they are not agreeable to giving away their land either.”

The BMC notice issued on December 19 states that the cemetery premises on Kadeshwari Mata Mandir Marg lie within the regular line of the public street, and consequently the civic body intends to take possession of the land together with its enclosing walls, hedges, fencing or any other structure that may be found on it.

Godfrey Pimenta, founder of the NGO ‘Watchdog Foundation’, alleged that this was a criminal conspiracy hatched by vested interests in the BMC in connivance with a developer who planned to redevelop the adjoining sprawling slum colony. “The slum colony does not have a road with width enough to sanction an SRA Scheme,” he said. “The present notice has been issued to accommodate the developer’s requirements.”

Pimenta added that since the BMC could not provide land for burials and cremation grounds, it had no right to snatch the existing cemetery land. “Kadeshwari Mata Mandir Marg reaches a dead end from Chapel Road, and therefore its widening and claiming the cemetery property is totally uncalled for,” he said.

A civic official from H West ward who served the notice said that Kadeshwari Mata Mandir Marg started from St John Baptist Road and was extremely narrow. “As per the DCPR 2034, every road should be 9.15 metres or more than 9.5 metres,” he said, adding that the approval to widen the road had been given by the municipal commissioner, and due process had been followed.

The existing road is around 14 feet in width and the BMC wants to widen it to 30 feet. “There are slum structures with five open plots and the compound walls of six buildings come in the way of the road-widening but no residential building is affected,” he said. “Thirty days have been given to all affected parties to respond.”

The civic official stressed that only 3.93 feet would be taken from two corners of the Bene Israeli Jewish cemetery and only one corner measuring 3.93 feet from the Catholic cemetery. “The graves will remain untouched,” he said.