PURI: Puri police has released all the nine Bangladeshi nationals including the five who entered the Shri Jagannath temple on March 3.
The five foreigners, only one of them a Hindu, had been caught by servitors inside the Srimandir and handed over to Simhadwar police. After confiscating their passports and other travel documents, police had detained them in a hotel and asked them not to leave Puri until inquiry into the matter was over.
On Thursday, Puri SP Pinak Mishra said, “We had contacted the Bangladesh High Commission and sought information about them to verify if they have any criminal antecedents. After the Bangladesh High Commission gave a clean chit, we released them. All of them have left Puri.”
Mishra further said there is a need to put display boards near all the four gates of the temple with a clear mention of the restriction on entry of non-Hindus into the shrine.
The five Bangladeshis reportedly had darshan of the Trinity inside the sanctum sanctorum and even bought Mahaprasad from Anand Bazaar.