9 Indore civic staffers booked for ‘disrespecting’ Ganesh idols: Cops

BHOPAL: Nine contractual employees of Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) were booked on Tuesday for allegedly disrespecting Ganesh idols collected from people by throwing them into a pond for immersion, Madhya Pradesh police said.

IMC commissioner Prathiba Pal terminated all nine employees, including two supervisors — Avinash Deshmukh and Chandra Shekhar Yadav — from the services. The programme officer Shailendra Pataudi and zonal officer Brijmohan Bhadoriya were also suspended. An inquiry has also been ordered in this regard, Pal said. “The incident of throwing idols in a pond has hurt the religious sentiments of people,” Pal said.

Based on a complaint lodged by an employee of the IMC, an FIR under section 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) was registered against nine civic employees, an official from Chandan Nagar police station said.

The video of the incident has gone viral on social media, in which IMC employees can be seen throwing the idols in a hurried manner, even as enraged citizens were heard saying their religious sentiments were being hurt and strongly criticising the civic administration.

Congress MLA Sanjay Shukla and other party leaders staged a protest, seeking action against senior officers. “It was the

responsibility of senior IMC officers to hold the immersion...but they deputed the work to contractual employees,” Shukla said.

BJP MP from Indore, Shankar Lalwani, said, “The conduct of employees is unacceptable and they have been punished. An FIR has been registered. The probe is being held by IMC and further action will be taken on the basis of its findings...,” he said.