‘Divine intervention’ stalls century-old church’s sale

A timely complaint by a Christian outfit saved the historic Golaknath Memorial Church, located at Mission Compound in Jalandhar’s Adarsh Nagar, from being sold off — at a price that wasn’t even 5 per cent of the property’s true value.

An anonymous tip-off on the phone is learnt to have blown the lid off the illegal sale. The call was made to pastor Sarwan Masih, a member of the United Church of Northern India Trust Association, which manages the shrine.

As the property in-charge, pastor Sarwan was the first to approach the police. He alleged that a resident of Mohyal Nagar in Jalandhar, claiming himself to be the association’s treasurer, had signed a sale agreement for the church land with one Jordan Masih of Ludhiana.

Sources said the deal was struck by the real estate mafia for Rs 5 crore and a token amount of Rs 5 lakh had already exchanged hands. Realtors estimate that the 24-kanal church land, situated on a prime commercial road near Football Chowk, could be worth more than Rs 200 crore.

The complainant alleged that Jordan had no connection with the church. The pastor also provided evidence to show that the token amount of Rs 5 lakh had been transferred through a private bank, and that even the land registry had been planned in a few days. An FIR was lodged on the basis of a preliminary inquiry conducted by the police in association with officials from the revenue department and the local administration.

ACP Bharat Masih from the Special Branch of the Jalandhar Police Commissionerate conducted the inquiry, the report of which was submitted today to the Commissioner of Police, Swapan Sharma. The commissioner ordered the registration of the FIR.

The 129-year-old church was built in memory of Bengali Brahmin Golaknath Chatterjee, who had renounced his home and led the first Indian Christian missionary in the Doaba region around 1830. Prior to his missionary, all those active in the area were British.

Chatterjee, tutored by Christian missionary Alexander Duff in Kolkata, was a contemporary of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, whom he met several times. Chatterjee drew inspiration from Raja Ram Mohan Roy and undertook missionary works in Jalandhar and Ludhiana during that period.

Meanwhile, a plaque inside the church mentioned that Bishop of Chandigarh Rev Joel V Mal had laid the stone to mark the centenary of the church (built in 1895) on December 28, 1995.

Jalandhar DC Himanshu Aggarwal said, “We have received the complaint about an attempt to sell off a church’s property. An investigation is underway to find out how the accused were trying to work out the illegal deal.” A similar attempt to sell off a church had earlier come to light in UP’s Saharanpur.