The Mumbai Police Commissioner has received a complaint from the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC) requesting that office bearers of the Maitri Park Cooperative housing society in Chembur and Shoden Developers be booked for their failure to repair a Gurudwara following its demolition. The complaint claims that the Sikh community’s religious feelings were offended by the incident.
One of Chembur’s most affluent societies, Maitri Park Cooperative Housing Society, is embroiled in a dispute over a gurudwara that is almost four decades old. The gurudwara is a hallowed site of worship for a few Sikh and Sindhi families in the community as well as for visitors who come here on a regular basis.
The society has been fighting for redevelopment for the past eighteen years. Recently, two of its inhabitants served committee members and Shoden Developers, the company that was given the reconstruction contract, with a legal notice.
The announcement states that Shoden Developers was awarded the contract a second time in 2022 after the society’s committee was unable to reach a consensus on the developer’s 2019 offer. The developers, according to the complainants, promised to carry out the reconstruction in accordance with the previous contract, which included the gurudwara’s redevelopment, but neglected to include it in the Development Agreement and layout design.
Following the receipt of no response to the legal notification, the complainant reached out to DSGMC, a statutory organisation responsible for overseeing old gurudwaras. Additionally, it conducts operations to protect the interests of the Sikh community and ensure effective administration of affairs.
The secretary of the DSGMC, Jasmain Singh Noni, wrote to the commissioner of police in Mumbai on Monday, requesting that the society’s chairman and secretary be arrested together with Shoden Developers for fraud, forgery, criminal conspiracy, and offending the Sikh community’s feelings.
Source: The Free Press Journal
