Kurunthurmalai Hilltop
Kurunthurmalai hilltop located in Sri Lanka’s northern Mullaitivu district.
Why it is in news?
Tamils from the surrounding Thannimurippu area, who have frequented the location for years to offer prayers to Aadi Aiyanar (their local Siva deity), have been contending with disruptions to their regular prayers by Sinhalese mobs led by Buddhist monks.
Kurunthurmalai and 78 acres around it have been part of an archaeological reserve since 1933, when the British colonial government gazetted it as a protected area.
All the same, Tamils in the area continued visiting the hilltop temple and worshipped a trident, a symbol of Aadi Aiyanar or Siva, as their ancestors had done.
Trouble began in 2018, when a group of Sinhalese, led by Buddhist monks, tried to install a Buddha statue at the location.
Stiff resistance from locals prompted the police to intervene.
However, amid recurring claims that the site contains ruins of an ancient Buddhist shrine, authorities in the former Gotabaya Rajapaksa government ordered fresh excavations.
In a blatant violation of an earlier court order, a Buddha statue was placed at the contested site.
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