Parsis protest plan to relocate holy fire

Suggestion to shut down temple comes after former trustee of Bombay Parsi Punchayet wrote in newspaper that the community ahowld sell off some of its 48 fire temples and use the money from sales for charity

- MANOJ RAMAKRISHNAN

Suggestions to shift a 150year-old holy fire from a fire temple in central Mumbai that has very few visitors and sell it off has incensed a section of Parsis. A Bombay High Court lawyer has sent a legal notice to the chairman of the community's largest public trust after a newspaper associated with his family discussed the idea.

The Ervad Sorabji Hormusji Ranji Ranji fire temple on Pathe Bapurao Marg, also called Falkland Road, was used by the once-thriving Parsi community that lived in the area. Dinshaw Mehta, a former trustee of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP), the community's largest trust, suggested that the agiary, built in 1867, should be sold and the sale proceeds used for charity.

As holy fires cannot be extinguished, Mehta suggested that the fire should be shifted to another agiary. He said that the area once had at least six buildings with nearly a hundred Parsi families.