Temple town murder puts spotlight on saga of greed and revenge
PURI: At 10.20am on March 16, 44-year-old Krushna Pratihari walked down to the Lord Nrusinghanath temple near his home in the Manikarnika Sahi area of Puri. The 100m walk was a daily routine. Every day, Pratihari, secretary of the Suara Mahasuara Nijog, a powerful committee of servitors at the 12th century Jagannath Temple, would make the walk after finishing his early morning routine that entailed the supervision of cooking of food in the temple kitchen, the largest in any shrine in the country. This time though, his walk was prompted by a phone call.
Pratihari entered the premises of the temple, and was hailed by the two men who made the call. They discussed the purchase of a plot of land in the city, and as they pored over some papers, Pratihari made a call to his younger brother, Narasingha, and asked him to join them. But it was all a ruse.
In the minutes that followed, one of the men pulled out a 9mm pistol and fired. As Pratihari fell, with blood gushing out the back of his head, the assailant fired twice more, one of those bullets entering his chest, piercing his heart. The assailants then rushed to two waiting motorcycles, and made their escape. Pratihari didn’t have a chance. The district hospital was only 2km away, but he was already dead.
But in the holy town of Puri, blood feuds are not unfamiliar.
Indeed, Pratihari’s murder has its roots in another killing a decade ago, one in which he was one of the accused, and for which he even spent 18 months in prison.
The origin of the saga
On the evening of August 22, 2012, Taluccha Mohapatra, a Jagannath Temple servitor and a Biju Janata Dal councillor at the time, was shot dead by a gunman. Mohapatra’s story was typical of Puri. He was once convicted in an attempt to murder case in 2007, and was accused of several cases of landgrabbing. The prime accused in his murder was Pratihari.
Court records say that six months before Mohapatra was murdered, he had a bitter fight with Pratihari over a plot of land. Both were eyeing the land which was worth ₹50 crores. The landowner opted to deal with Pratihari. Enraged, Mohapatra threatened Pratihari, but before he could make good on his threat, someone got to him.
In their charge sheet, police claimed that the 2012 murder was planned inside the temple, and eight days after the murder, Pratihari was arrested, along with five others. He spent a total of 18 months in jail, before he was given bail. In January 2022, Pratihari and the others were acquitted after the court ruled that the number of the pistol reportedly used in the murder, and the one sent to the forensic lab for further examination, did not match. During the trial, police described the anomaly as a “clerical error”.
But when Pratihari was acquitted, this detail mattered little. The man and his accomplices celebrated raucously in front of Mohapatra’s home.
Crucially though, court verdict or not, the Mohapatra family continued to hold a grudge, firm in their belief that Pratihari was responsible for the death. Watching his celebrations when he was acquitted only made things worse. And thus five days after Pratihari was killed, when the Odisha Police arrested 10 people for his murder on March 21, 2022, among them were Taluccha Mohapatra’s father Nityananda (58), and his younger brother Ashish Mohapatra (26), both servitors of the Pushpalaka Nijog, the men in charge of dressing the three deities at the Jagannath Temple.
“They wanted to avenge the murder of Taluchha Mohapatra that was allegedly masterminded by Krushna Pratihari. They engaged the manager of a lodge to arrange for people who plotted and executed the murder. The killers were promised ₹30 lakh and an advance of ₹2 lakh was given to them apart from ₹70,000 to buy a 9mm pistol and bullets,” said Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh.
In fact, the Pratihari killing was not the only act of revenge that has been carried out in the saga. In February 2014, erstwhile tourism and culture minister Maheswar Mohanty was shot at twice near his house in Puri by two motorcycle-borne assailants. The attack was part of the fallout of the Mohapatra murder, with the latter’s family continuing to believe that the senior politician was also involved in it.
Mohapatra’s ageing mother, Saradhamani, was arrested in this case on March 1, 2014 and spent 12 days in jail, before she was released on bail on March 13. In August 2017, the chief judicial magistrate of Puri sentenced three people to five years of imprisonment but acquitted her and two others due to lack of evidence. Saradhamani and her lawyers refused to comment for this story.
The influence of servitors
In Puri, 65km away from Bhubaneswar, life has always revolved around the Jagannath temple, one of the Hindu Vishnavaite dhams, the others being Rameswaram, Badrinath, and Dwarka. In turn, the most powerful figures in Puri have always been the servitors, locally known as sevayats, at the temple. With rituals at the temple beginning at dawn when the heavy wooden doors are thrown open, the etched in stone routines require massive manpower. The temple has over 8,000 servitors who are part of 36 different associations called Chhatisa Nijog that perform over 100 different functions on a daily basis. The servitors don’t get a salary from the temple administration, but are paid periodic remuneration for the rituals such as cooking of Mahaprasad
(the divine food), dressing of the deities, flower decorations, and tying of the Patitapaban flag atop the 65m-tall temple mast every sunset. “The remuneration could be as high as ₹2,830 per day or as low as ₹400,” said Subhendu Sahu, administrator (Niti) of the temple.
But this influence has also led to a proliferation of crime. “In Puri, many major crimes have had the shadow of sevayats hanging over them. As the economy of Puri revolves around the Jagannath temple and tourism, sevayats have a predominant role. Starting from cases like misbehaviour with devotees, to land-grabbing, there is a long list of crimes,” said a police officer who asked not to be named.
A home department report in 2012 found that at least 60 sevayats had charges of molestation, murder, extortion and criminal intimidation lodged against them. There has been no update of this list since.
Even among the servitors, Pratihari held pride of place. Three years ago, he became secretary of the Suara Mahasuara Nijog. “The Nijog looks after cooking of the holy Mahaprasad in the woodfired hearths of the temple kitchen called Roshaghara. On an average, the food which includes rice, dal, a curry of selected vegetables, payaas and sweet is made for at least 10,000 people every day, rising to 40,000 people during festivals,” said Ajay Jena, administrator (development) of the temple.
Pratihari’s influence was such that he was elected as secretary of the Nijog and continued to be a nominated member of the temple managing committee between 2011 and 2014 even as he stood trial for murder.
Sevayats and land
Many of the crimes in Puri that involve servitors revolve around land. In August 2007, temple servitor Ajaya Kumar Sarangi was on his way home when assailants shot and killed him because of a dispute over property. Seven people including Madhab Khuntia, another servitor with dozens of cases against him, was arrested for the crime, and the trial is still underway. In August 1996, servitor Damodar Mahasuara was attacked by a group of servitors including Taluchha Mohapatra. A sessions court in January 2010 sentenced five people including Mohapatra to five years in jail for attempted murder. A year later, Mohapatra was out on bail.
Chief servitor of the Jagannath temple, Janardhan Pattajoshi Mohapatra said the sevayats have become pawns in the hands of politicians and a “property mafia”. “The politicians looked the other way when these servitors grabbed land or broke laws. Their patronage for these servitors has led to the current mess,” said Janardhan Mohapatra.
Senior police officials said that till the mid-1990s, Puri had only a few hotels, owned by locals. By the early 2000s, businessmen, predominantly from Bengal, entered the market. “Though the businessmen managed to build hotels and lodges, they depended on the servitors to fill up their rooms. Over time, some servitors illegally grabbed these properties... The original owners lodged complaints and moved court but the process was too long drawn out. Soon a new class of servitors emerged who were seduced by the riches land could offer,” said a police officer who asked not to be named.
Priyadarshan Patnaik, a lawyer who heads Jagannath Sena, a Puribased outfit fighting to “save Jagannath culture” said when sevayats started grabbing properties, the administration and the police looked the other way. “Every police official in Puri knows which sevayat is involved in land-grabbing or timber smuggling. But what can police do when politics is intertwined with temple matters; unless that is resolved, this mess is difficult to resolve.”
A BJD leader in Puri, Gourhari Pradhan, alleged that a section of sevayats with criminal backgrounds were supported by former minister Maheswar Mohanty who represented the constituency between 1995 and 2019. “Most of what you see now is due to the patronage given to a section of sevayats by Mohanty,” said Pradhan. Mohanty, however, denied these allegations, saying: “These allegations are false. I have never supported any criminals.”
A former superintendent of Puri admitted that the sensitivity that surrounds temple limits their ability to take action. “Even if you arrest a servitor on charges of land-grabbing or murder, the courts acquit him or they get bail very quickly...the police don’t pick up servitors as a rule thinking it will hold up temple rituals. The oversensitivity is exploited by the servitors,” he said.
In 2019, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by justice Arun Mishra suggested a slew of measures including ID cards for servitors, proper training in nitis and rituals, the abolition of hereditary rights of servitors, and enabling the temple administration to manage the temple kitchen. This came after a PIL by Cuttack-based lawyer Mrinalini Padhi in 2018 sought a probe into the disappearance of the keys to the Ratna Bhandar of the temple, where the deity’s jewellery is kept. However, most of these suggestions are yet to be complied with. “Plans are on to comply with some parts of the order,” said Ajay Jena.
The Pratihari murder has meant a wave of mourning in his family, but also a town on the edge. If history is any benchmark, a wave of violence seems almost inevitable. One young servitor, close to Pratihari said, “It will be difficult to forget this murder in a hurry.” In Puri, lingering memory often means revenge.