Hanuman temple under threat from gobbling Brahmaputra!

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, June 2: Even as the monsoon is still to arrive in Guwahati, the masculine river has started gobbling up its bank, pushing a Hanuman Mandir on the verge of being swept away.

The Hanuman Mandir in question is located on the bank of the Brahmaputra at Uzan Bazar here. The mandir has all along been surviving scares, including eviction drives being carried out by the district administration. It was some 11 years ago that the temple had to be evicted from the side of the road leading to Raj Bhawan. From there the temple committee had to shift it to the other side of the road, as though for Sri Sri Hanuman to drive a wedge between the road and the river. However, now after eleven years the existence of the temple is at stake again, with the river about to gobble it up. One of the walls of the temple premises has already been washed away by the river. On its part, the temple committee has fastened the posts of the temple with a big tree standing erect nearby.

The temple has been under threat from the river for about a week. Today officials from the district administration and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) visited the spot and took stock of the vulnerability of the temple, said Sri Sri Hanuman Mandir Uzan Bazaar Jahajghat Parichala Samiti secretary Mukut Choudhury. He further said that the district administration and the SDRF assured them of trying their best to divert the water current of the river so as to save the temple. “A team of Water Resources Department will come from Morigaon to get the job accomplished,” Choudhury quoted the district administration and SDRF officials as telling the committee. The Uzan Bazar fish market is also at stake as it has all along been exposed to the wrath of the male river. The fish market has no guard structures to save it from erosion.