Shopkeepers stage a dharna in Bodhgaya on Tuesday. Picture by Suman

Two shops in the Mahabodhi shopping complex were demlished by the district administration on Tuesday.

The bulldozed shops (numbers 7 and 28), owned by Mohammad Jameel Asgar and Rajkumari Devi respectively, are among the 27 shops owned by the Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee (BTMC) in the 58-shop complex. Of the rest, the tourism department owns 23 and the Bodhgaya nagar panchayat eight.

Although the owners of the two shops vacated them and returned the keys to the BTMC, the action triggered panic among other shop owners of the complex on the red pedestal towards north of Mahavihara.

The bulldozer was placed near the BTMC office in Bodhgaya and security personnel deployed since morning. The shops were razed in the presence of Gaya city superintendent of police (SP) Chandan Kushwaha, Gaya sadar sub-divisional officer Maqsood Alam and station house officer of Bodhgaya police station T.N. Tiwari. District magistrate Balamurugan D, senior superintendent of police Ganesh Kumar were holding a meeting with other district and the police administration officials in the BTMC office at the time of filing of this report.

BTMC has given seven days’ time to the shop owners for vacating their establishments through a notice served on July 18. In retaliation, the shop owners have filed a writ petition in Patna High Court against the order issued by the DM.

The order was passed on the pretext that these shops pose a threat to the security of the Mahavihara.

On the other hand, legal experts said the hearing date of the writ petition has not yet been fixed and only admission of the case does not guarantee a stay order.

BTMC has decided to issue identity cards to private photographers operating in and around the shrine. A list of 45 photographers has been sent to the Gaya city SP Chandan Kushwaha, who is heading the three-member security committee constituted after the July 7 serial blasts.

The city SP has forwarded the list to Bodhgaya police station for verification of identity and other details of the photographers. The verification report will be sent to BTMC and only then identity cards will be issued. Electronic gadgets, including cameras and cellphones, have been banned on the Mahavihara campus.

There is some relaxation in the rule for groups of tourists, who can take cameras inside the shrine only after taking permission of the Mahavihara chief priest and depositing Rs 100 at the counter. Before the blasts, the fee for taking each camera into the campus was Rs 20.