Hit by terror, Bodh
Gaya temple in Bihar to get armed security cover
PTI 17th May 2017
NEW DELHI: Four years after a terror strike at
the Mahabodhi temple, the Centre is planning to provide an armed
security cover of trained paramilitary commandos to the UNESCO
World Heritage site in Bodh Gaya in Bihar, known as the cradle of
Buddhism.
A series of blasts in and around the temple on
July 7, 2013 had injured two monks, following which Bihar Chief
Minister Nitish Kumar had sought an armed security cover for the
temple complex and its adjoining temples, 115-km south of the state
capital Patna.
Officials said after several rounds of
high-level talks, the Union home ministry has decided to sanction a
CISF security cover to the temple complex and a few more meetings
would be held to finalise the plan.
They said the grounds for providing the armed
cover have been analysed and the security establishment believes
that the world famous temple site needs to be provided with a
protection cover owing to its status of being a World Heritage
site, thronged by lakh of domestic and international tourists and
followers every year.
"The first demand for an armed security cover
to the temple complex was made by the Bihar government in 2013,
right after the blasts. However, various issues like the pattern of
deployment and CISF being provided only to high threat perception
utilities kept the decision hanging for the last four years," a
senior officer said.
They said that the Central Industrial Security
Force CISF), a force which has expertise in securing vital
installations and buildings, had carried out a survey of the
facility immediately after the blasts.
That CISF report will now be used and
discussed before the security cover is accorded to the temple
complex, they said.
"The final sanction for granting the security
cover to the temple complex could come by this month-end from the
home ministry. An estimated 150-200 commandos and personnel of the
CISF have been projected in the security audit that will be
required to guard the 4.8600-hectare complex," the senior officer
said.
The officials said central security agencies,
in their regular intelligence dossiers to the home ministry, have
underlined that the temple complex is vulnerable from the point of
view of possible sabotage and terror attacks and hence should have
a good protection paraphernalia for the building and the visiting
devotees.
While the temple trust will not be able to
bear the estimated cost of Rs 20 crore per annum in lieu of the
CISF deployment, the Bihar government may provide these funds in
consultation with the Centre, they said.
Frequented by Buddhist pilgrims from Sri
Lanka, China, Japan and the whole of southeast Asian, the temple
and the Bodhi Tree, under which Lord Buddha is believed to have
attained enlightenment, did not suffer any damage in the blasts
that shook the holy town of Gaya in 2013.
As per the UNESCO, "the Mahabodhi temple
complex is the first temple built by Emperor Asoka in the third
century BC and the present temple dates from the 5th–6th
centuries.
"It is one of the earliest Buddhist temples
built entirely in brick, still standing, from the late Gupta period
and it is considered to have had significant influence in the
development of brick architecture over the centuries."