MADURAI: Tension prevailed at Vellalur Nadu, a collective of 65 villages in and around Melur, when people resorted to a protest over the proposed move by the HR & CE department to take over three village temples — the Mandai Karuppanasamy temple, Ezhaikatha Amman temple and Valladikarar temple — which have been under their control for over 500 years.

The 65 villages are divided into five provinces, and these are subdivided into 11 smaller portions call ‘Karai’, each administered by two leaders known as ‘Ambalathukarar’. There are 22 Ambalathukarars who administer and manage the three major temples in the region. All 65 villages are dominated by the Kallar community for whom appointment as Ambalathukarar is a matter of prestige. Recently, a person from the community demanded that he be instated as an Ambalathukarar which was opposed by many. He approached the civil court which dismissed his petition. The HR & CE department was then informed about largescale misappropriation of funds belonging to the temples. A petition urged the department to take administrative control of the shrines. On coming to know of this, the

decided to take out a protest march to the department in

. However, the assistant commissioner of HR and CE, Vijayan, tahsildar Sivagaminathan and Melur DSP Subash and other officials held talks with the villagers and asked them to give their objections to the takeover of their temples. ``We were assured that nothing would be done against our wishes,’’ said S Kurinji Kumaran, the Ambalathukarar of Samattikarai, who has been leading this collective of villages for over 12 years now.

He said that someone had told the HR & CE department that they were handling a lot of funds regarding the temples and sought the department’s intervention. ``The Vellalur Nadu collective has been in existence for the past 500 years and about 2 lakh people from the 65 villages offer worship here, and the deities are considered their traditional deities,’’ he said. Earlier, there had been a similar allegation of the temples receiving crores of rupees as hundi collection, which was brought to the department’s notice. Consequently, the village heads decided to do away with hundi collection in these temples over a decade ago.

The annual festival of the temples is celebrated in a grand way, including the one for the Ezhaikatha Amman temple, where seven small girls are made to represent the female deity. They are made to stay in the temple and rituals conducted for a week.

``Our temples are administered exclusively on the donations from villagers, who are attached to these temples and no outside donations are accepted,’’ said Kumaran. He added that all the heads and the village representatives come together to decide on the annual expenditure of the temple festival, and it is split among the five provinces.

People in each province contribute to the festival. Donations are also collected in the form of rice to feed the people who come to the festival and for the workers. Over 20,000 people, most them women, gathered in the village protesting the proposed move to take over the temple. Shops in Vellalur Nadu remained closed on Wednesday morning in protest. They said that the ownership of the temple should be theirs and that they would not bequeath it to outsiders.