Devotees reject mediation offer in Deepam row

THE suggestion made by the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board before the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court to consider resolving the issue of lighting the Karthigai Deepam on the Thiruparankundram hilltop through a court-monitored mediation was strongly objected by the counsels representing the Hindu devotees, who called it an attempt to further complicate the issue.

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Even the question posed by a division bench of justices G Jayachandran and K K Ramakrishnan if the matter could be remitted back to the HR&CE department to be decided through an inquiry under Section 63 of the HR&CE Act, 1959, was met with resistance. Our rights would not be safe at the hands of authorities who expressed scorn towards our faith, senior counsel S Sriram said.