Puri: Routine rituals of the Holy Trinity at the Jagannath Temple in Puri were interrupted on Friday after a banned servitor reportedly performed a service on the occasion of the Saptapuri Amavasya this morning.
According to reports, a Singhari servitor married a woman from a different caste and was hence banned from performing any service at Srimandir. Instead, his brothers were scheduled to serve the deities at the temple on Friday. Despite the ban, the concerned servitor performed all rituals in the morning – from Mangal Alati to Mailam. This was opposed by the Puja Panda servitors of the temple who apprised the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) authorities that the priest community at Jagannath Temple would not perform any ritual if the banned was allowed to perform any service.
Soon after, Puja Panda servitors abstained from all services of the deities in the morning resulting in chaos and delay in the services at the temple.
Later, SJTA Chief Administrator Ranjan Kumar Das intervened in the matter to end the deadlock and held discussions with the representatives of several servitor groups. Talking to the media, “Das said that today our main objective was to end the deadlock and perform all the rituals of the Lord on time. We have agreed to frame a policy to deal with such matters.”
