Atchuvely residents demand opening of Sannithi Temple Road

[TamilNet, Sunday, 31 August 2003, 11:17 GMT]
Residents of Atchuvely town in Jaffna has asked the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) officials through the Asistant Government Agent of the district to open the Thondamanaru-Selvachannithi road for public use, civil sources from Jaffna said. SLA has closed this road segment from Idaikkadu to Thondamanaru for the past several years as this segment lies within the SLA's demarcated High Security Zone (HSZ).

Residents of the area and devotees to the Sannithi Murugan Temple have to use the long and ciruitous access road through Vallai to reach the temple.

Temple authorities say that with the start of the annual temple festival large number of devotees are expected to attend the festivals from different parts of the peninsula and this is likely to cause congestion of vehicular and pedestrian traffic to the temple.

Residents say that although the civil groups request to open the road in previous years were not heeded by the SLA, with the prevailing peace climate the SLA should consider opening the temple access road to ease the difficulties of the devotees.

The request has also been given to the Minister for Hindu Cultural Affairs, T. Maheswaran, sources said.