Panaji, Mar 8 (TOI): An over 100-year-old chapel dedicated to St Anthony in Colvale village is facing demolition for the ongoing highway expansion work in the state. The village residents, led by fashion designer Wendell Rodricks, have petitioned the President of India, the Prime Minister and the chief minister on Thursday, seeking that the highway widening be realigned to save the chapel from demolition.

The 57 Colvale residents have produced an agreement signed in 1928 and testimonies by two local residents in their 90s to prove that the chapel has existed for more than a century.

In their letter, the villagers have said they have had to spare their land for several government projects like the Colvale industrial development corporation, housing board, central jail, central power grid, irrigation canal and staff quarters and for the previous as well as the current highway expansion. This amounts to 2.4 lakh sqm taken up together for the state and central government projects.

Rodricks has said that despite giving away their village land for development projects, the authorities failed to discuss the decision to demolish the chapel.

In the petition, Rodricks has said that demolition of the St Anthony Chapel is “illegal and in violation of the Supreme Court’s order that a religious structure over 100 years old cannot be destroyed. This ruling was enforced after the Babri Masjid demolition”.

The villagers have asked for President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention to realign the highway and create a flyover on Y-shaped columns and an underpass at the St Anthony Chapel junction so that the religious structure is saved.

“At the same time, can you plase ensure a noise-free corridor with screens so that the villagers can sleep and live in peace. A Y-shaped column flyover will also save many existing homes that are over 200 years old,” Rodricks, a Padma Shri awardee, has said.

The villagers have said that when the Colvale land was acquired for previous central and state government projects, garbage management and cleaning facilities were not provided. They also said that the highway through the village was designed in such a manner that it endangers the lives of locals.

“With the highway cutting the village in half without a bypass, our villagers, youth and elderly cannot cross the village due to life threatening traffic (we have lost lives of children and seniors or who have been seriously injured). The villagers have to wait at the highways to cross over to go to the temple, church and school, which are now on both sides of the highway,” says the letter.