Junior priest, 4 others test Covid +ve
LUCKNOW: A junior priest at the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya, three members of the UP Fire Services and one personnel of the local intelligence unit deployed there tested positive for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) on Thursday, days ahead of the ground breaking ceremony for the new Ram temple, but the person overseeing the project said there is no cause for concern.
On August 5, 11 priests from Varanasi and Ayodhya will perform the rituals during the bhumi pujan for the Ram temple , but the junior priest was not part of this group. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to participate in the ceremony. The construction of the temple was made possible by a Supreme Court ruling in November that ended a decades-old dispute and ordered that a Ram temple be built on the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site.
The priest in question is one of the five who perform daily rituals at the current makeshift temple at Ram Janmabhoomi.
“There is nothing to worry. One of the priests who performs daily rituals at Ram Janmabhoomi has tested positive. The entire campus will be sanitised on a routine basis,” said Mahant Kamal Nayan Das, successor designate to Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, chairman of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust which is responsible for the temple project.
A member of the trust who asked not to be named said the 11 priests would be tested for Covid-19 on August 3, when rituals begin for the three-day ceremony that culminates in the bhumi pujan.
Only a few people are being invited for the ceremony on August 5 in light of the social distancing norms necessitated by the pandemic.
The number of Covid-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh is on the increase and stood at 81,039 as of Thursday night.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath visited the Ram Janmabhoomi complex on July 25 to review preparations for the event. He requested local saints to attend the ceremony only if they get invites from the trust. Those that do, shouldn’t take along anyone with them, he added.
The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust last week issued an appeal to all saints across the country to perform puja in their respective temples and Maths from 11.30 am to 12.30 pm on August 5. Champat Rai, general secretary of the trust, requested people to watch the live telecast of the bhumi pujan on television and light earthen lamps at home in the evening.
On Saturday Adityanath said people have waited 500 years for this day and that it would be celebrated on the lines of Deepawali, which, in some parts of the country, is celebrated to mark Lord Ram’s return home to Ayodhya after a 14-year exile.