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Zoroastrian priest backs petition against Metro

MUMBAI: The Metro 3, if allowed to run under two Atash Behrams here, would breach the spiritual circuit and it will be a “complete desecration”, said a fully ordained Zoroastrian priest, Ervad Parvez Bajan, in an affidavit before the Bombay high court.

Read out by senior counsel Navroz Seervai, representing a few Parsi professionals seeking a realignment of the Metro 3 route, the affidavit sought to set out the “extremely high spiritual significance of the protective circuits concerning the premises of an Atash Behram which houses the highest grade holy fire”.

Bajan, a priest since 1962, said if a tunnel passes under the Atash Behram, “it will be desecrated…lost forever to the Zoroastrian community”.

“The whole procedure of consecration of an Atash Behram is intended to generate a divine field, a spiritual force, circuits of sacred energies which have divine tasks to perform…,” the affidavit said. It added that the Atash Behram “comprises the land, entire precinct and edifice, not just the sanctum sanctorum, and the boundaries”.

MMRCL’s reply said: “It is submitted that although the authorities described the consecration of Atash Behram in full detail, no claim has been made by the author that the passing of a tunnel line through the fire temple will desecrate it.”

Published on Times of India