Social activist detained by the police on her way to Shirdi
The Maharashtra police on Thursday detained social activist Trupti Desai and some other members of the outfit at Ahmednagar in Maharashtra. The Trupti led team was marching towards the Saibaba temple at Shirdi to remove boards put up outside the temple to ask the devotees visiting the temple to be dressed up in a ‘civilized’ manner.
Ms Desai earlier had alerted that if the board with such a borderline message were not eliminated then she would go to Shirdi along with other activists and pull down those boards on December 10. She received a notice from the sub-divisional Magistrate of Shirdi area Govind Shinde on Tuesday. The issued notice asked Ms Desai not to enter Shirdi in Ahmednagar from December 8 to December 11 citing a law and order situation.
The SP of Ahmednagar said “We detained Desai along with 15 to 16 members of the outfit near the Pune-Ahmednagar highway at the Supa village under Section 68 of the Bombay Police Act”.
Recently the Saibaba Temple Trust hanged boards outside the temple premises pleading the visiting devotees to be dressed in a ‘civilized’ manner and according to ‘Indian Culture’. The trust representatives and officials stated that they received complaints regarding devotees entering the holy place in clothes that are ‘objectionable’. A senior official of the trust later clarified that they have not come up with an imposition on any dress code for the devotees and this message on the boards outside the temple was just an appeal.
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