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Residents of three villages in the southeastern Adıyaman province have filed a complaint against the Menzil sect for damaging their cemetery during road expansion works.
Villagers from Elbeyi, Ortaköy and Göçeri submitted a petition of complaint to the Kahta Chief Public Prosecutor's Office against the company and all the people who did the road work and who gave the order for it.
CLICK - Pro-government religious sect builds road through village cemetery
Attorney Kadir Erdem, who is from the village but lives in İstanbul, said that the suspects committed the offenses of damaging cemeteries (Turkish Penal Code Article 153), insulting the memory of a person (Article 130) and occupying a property (Article 154).
Fifty graves were totally removed and 30 were partially damaged, Erdem said, adding that they requested an on-scene investigation from the prosecutor's office.
"An ex-officio investigation is required"
Noting that some villagers submitted a petition of complaint to Göçeri Gendarmerie Station but the prosecutor's office was not notified about it because villagers withdrew their complaint, Erdem noted that an ex-officio investigation is required for the alleged offenses.
For this reason, he said, the prosecutor's office should carry out an investigation before the evidence is spoiled.
"Because I'm in İstanbul, they sent me photographs and videos regarding the damage on the night the incident happened. I then wrote a petition for everyone to file a complaint and shared it on Facebook. Because there is a crime and who is responsible for that should be punished.
"We are not necessarily saying the incident happened by the order of the person who heads the sect. But we also know that even a nail can't be pounded without the knowledge of them. But when we asked them about that, they told us they were not aware of the incident.
"We then filed a criminal complaint. More than 30 people file a complaint with me. If it was done by the order of the sect, they should be punished; if excavator operators, earthmover operators, workers acted on their own initiative, then they should be punished.
"Because what happened is a humanitarian tragedy. This situation really hurts our hearts."
The tomb of the sect
Saying that they don't know whether the road work was permitted by authorities, Erdem noted that it was highly unlikely that a sub governor would permit a road passing through a cemetery. He thought that the sect was responsible for what happened, he added.
On the opposite side of the villages' cemetery, there is the tomb of the sect, he noted. "The yard of the sect's tomb is quite large. Instead of taking one or two meters from there, they divided the people's graves into halves. This is unacceptable. We have said this many times in similar incidents but nobody listened to us."
"Among the villagers, since our fathers and grandfathers, there has been the thought that 'the state always sides with the sect.' Because of that, everyone is in despair.
"The destruction of our graves was the final straw and frankly, we have started an uprising. We said, 'Such a thing can't happen'. There is the law, social media, and newspapers." (HA/VK)
