BHOPAL: Eight months after the Indore civic body staff dumped a few destitute elderly persons on the city outskirts drawing nationwide flak, the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) employees have been caught on camera discarding truck-loads of Lord Ganesh idols in a water body in the country's cleanest city.
Eleven employees of the municipal body face action for "attempt to hurt the religious sentiments". The incident was reported near a rain-fed pond at Jawahar Tekri on Dhar Road on Monday.
A video which went viral showed trucks loaded with Ganesh idols, collected from across the city for immersion in the pond. Instead of a respectful immersion, the employees were seen throwing the idols into the pond.
Indore municipal commissioner Pratibha Pal acted against the staff after opposition Congress leaders, including former chief minister and Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh, raised the issue. "It has come to our knowledge that instead of proper immersion, the idols were mistreated, which is bound to hurt the religious sentiments of the people. Such a crime is inexcusable. Action has been taken against the erring staff," Pal said on Tuesday.
"Services of two supervisors and seven other civic employees have been terminated, while a zonal officer and the Programme Officer have been suspended," she said. Lord Ganesha is one of the most revered Hindu deities and lakhs of households in Madhya Pradesh observe the ten-day-long Ganesh Mahotsava.
This is the second time in less than nine months that the Indore Municipal Corporation is in the news for wrong reasons. On January 29, the civic body's employees had taken destitute elderlies from various parts of the city in a truck and left them on the outskirts.
When local residents objected, the employees brought back the destitute on the same truck. But, instead of taking them to IMC shelters, the civic body staffers had forced them to get down from the truck in various parts of the city. A few muster roll staff were fired and senior officials suspended later.