Sinhala Archaeology officials attach GPS tracking to ‘heritage’ stones in East

[TamilNet, Sunday, 26 July 2020, 20:17 GMT]
A group of employees from all-Sinhala SL Archaeology Department spent time with a stone used to burn camphor at Chiththaa'ndi Murukan temple on Friday. When they left, they claimed to have attached a GPS tracker to the rock. In the meantime, SL Police Officer-in-Charge at Ea'raavoor Police was dodging to register a complaint from the temple board, sources close to the management said. Uniformed police personnel have been visiting the temple since 19 July and persons claiming to be employees of SL Archaeology Department come and go since 26 June. The intruding officials are not interested in informing through proper channels before their interventions. The situation has caused security-related concerns as there are valuable properties of the temple within the premises.

The temple management went to SL Police station at Ea'raavoor on 24 July to file a complaint to follow proper channels before and during the interventions. But, the SL Police OIC was not available. They were asked to come again the following day. The management was present the next day, but the OIC was away also that day. The SL Police personnel refused to register anything without the presence of the OIC.

Chief Priest at the temple Sivasri Vasantharajah Kurukka'l has requested the SL Police personnel and SL Archaeology Department officials who were ‘inspecting’ the stones to engage with the temple board.

While dodging to engage with the temple management, the SL Police was tightly collaborating with the SL Archaeology Department.

The visiting SL Archaeology personnel were claiming that the rocks used at the Saiva temple premises were ancient Buddhist ‘heritage’ artefacts.



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