HYDERABAD: The forcible taking over of St Thomas SPG Church's land at Secunderabad for metro rail construction has taken a new turn with church representatives demanding the land back.

The church representatives along with former MLA of Sanatnagar M Shashidhar Reddy met chief secretary Rajiv Sharma, who is also the chairman of HMRL, and told him about the takeover of 2,007 sq yards of the church land and wanted restoration of the property to the church. They said that they were willing to dismantle, at their cost, the metro pillar that had been built hastily on the land. They explained to the chief secretary how the church had in the past expressed its willingness to cooperate with the metro rail authorities and a 'third option' had also been agreed upon wherein a pillar would be allowed to be built just within seven and a half metres inside the church land.

However, on the night of January 28, the metro rail authorities along with the police had barged into the church premises and occupied 2,007 square yards of land after assaulting the priests and taking them into custody, the church authorities alleged. Addressing a press conference at the church on Wednesday, Shashidhar Reddy said the HMRL's actions showed that they were acting without transparency. He said though the high court had given a stay order, the HMRL authorities without responding to the court order had gone ahead and constructed the metro rail pillar on the church property.

"The church was willing to allow the metro rail to take over a small portion of its land where the Alpha hotel and a petrol bunk stand. It's strange that, instead of accepting the offer, the metro rail authorities chose only to take over the church land," Shashidhar Reddy said.

He also pointed out that the metro rail authorities had chosen to negotiate with the SPG church authorities when it came to constructing a pillar in the cemetery of the church but when it needed the front portion of the church for the same purpose, they negotiated with the Church of South India (CSI) which is also a claimant of the property. "The metro rail authorities are acting in a way that is convenient to them without taking into consideration religious sentiments," Shashidhar Reddy said. At the meeting with the chief secretary on Tuesday, the church authorities even offered to meet the expenditure to remove the metro rail pillar constructed on its premises as they needed the land for its meetings.

Meanwhile, a representative of the church Das Roberts said the HMRL authorities had completed construction of the metro rail pillar even though the matter was in the high court. He said the high court had once again directed the authorities to file their counter on the petition filed by the church against forcible takeover of the church land.