PUNE, June 15: The refusal of volunteers of the Sri Krishna Tarun Mandal to wait for any kind of sanction from the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) for extending its Ganesh temple led to a major confrontation between local residents and cantonment officials here on Saturday.

Fearing that the incident could possibly take a violent turn, cantonment board officials immediately sought the help of the military police and the local police leading to tension in the area.

The disputed temple, which has been in existence for many years at the junction between Taboot Street and Sachapir Street, has become a major bone of contention between local residents and the cantonment officials.

The board has time and again argued that the presence of the temple in the middle of the road could lead to major traffic problems in the congested area, something that the volunteers were unwilling to listen to.

The board had earlier lodged a complaint with the Centre Street Police station alleging that the Ganesh Mandal had gone ahead with construction activity without sanctions from the board.

When contacted, cantonment executive officer J Sharma told The Indian Express that he had already received information that the mandal members had brought construction material to the site three days ago.

``We had decided to wait and watch. I had also written to the mandal asking them not to undertake any kind of construction. However, they did not listen and went ahead,'' he said.

When the cantonment officials reached the spot, a heated argument ensued between them and members of the mandal.

As the officials pointed out that the mandal did not have any kind of sanction to undertake construction, the volunteers argued that matter had been pending with the board for a long time now.

Local elected member Ashok Pawar, board vice-president Shreekant Mantri and member Vinod Sanghvi who were present on the spot intervened and informed the mandal members that the matter would be taken up in the next board meeting on a priority basis.

Mantri felt that the matter could have been resolved amicably instead of calling in the local and military police.

This had unnecessarily created tension in the area, he said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.