Puri panic after mill fall

BHUBANESWAR: Panic struck devotees during Puri’s Jagannath Temple when a pot-shaped stone, weighing about a ton, came crashing down from a partial of a 12th century tabernacle on Tuesday.

Temple authorities pronounced a pauper identified as Bula Pothala of Dhenkanal was injured. “The occurrence triggered panic among pilgrims. We’ve asked a Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI) to do a consummate checkup of a shrine,” Laxmidhar Pujapanda, a temple’s open family officer, said. The mill fell off from a interior formidable (gumuta) located during a western gateway of a temple.

Chief apportion Naveen Patnaik shot off a minute to a Union apportion for enlightenment Kumari Selja seeking movement opposite a ASI employees who have unsuccessful in their avocation to safety a shrine. He pronounced a occurrence had harm a sentiments of devotees.

Angry priests have also indicted a ASI of ” negligence.” Defending his organization, A K Patel, a ASI’s superintending archaeologist (Bhubaneswar circle), said, “The matter is not grave. We think that monkeys competence have pushed down a stone. Our experts will re-install a pot-shaped mill that had grown cracks.”

Patel pronounced a ASI was not wakeful of a ‘weak’ stone, that was precariously perched on a gumuta during a tallness of 30 feet. He added, “We had no thought about a participation of a lax stone. The categorical church and sub-shrines are built with thousands of stones, many of that are weak. It’s formidable to locate such diseased and lax stones.”

But Patel’s arguments unsuccessful to remonstrate a priests. “It’s a pursuit of a ASI to take caring of a temple. What kind of work and investigation they do, if they can't locate and correct a diseased stones?” Somnath Khuntia, a priest, questioned.

“We’ve been angry opposite a ASI for a prolonged time. There are many structures during a church that are in a shambles,” he added.

In August, state arch secretary B K Patnaik wrote to a executive ubiquitous of a ASI seeking him to take adult a charge work of a Jagamohan (frontal porch) of a church immediately. He asked a ASI to finish charge work before a Nabakalebar festival of Jagannath that will take place in 2015. Sources pronounced a plan competence cost Rs 1.76 crore. “We’re carrying out correct works regularly. We correct a sanctum sanctorum during each Rath Yatra,” Patel said.

On Jun 14, 1990, a five-ton chunk hurtled down a structure (Amlabedha) of a church after complicated rain.

Two outrageous stones fell right into a sanctum sanctorum of a tabernacle on Aug 13, 1992.

Similarly, a 15-kg mill rolled down from a categorical church on Oct 26, 1998 and landed nearby a Bimla church within a periphery of a categorical church complex. There was, however, no detriment of life.

ASI experts pronounced a orange smear coated on a church centuries ago, was faulty. The ASI had carried out de-plastering work between 1980 and 1996. The smear is eight-inch thick and gets heavier when it absorbs rain water. “That’s because mill slabs and plasters come off,” an consultant said.