Ahmedabad: Tension in Anand village after Harijans ‘banned’ from temple

The incident was brought to light by members of the Valmiki community. “My daughter goes to Mahadev temple every Monday for prayers. She came back around 10 am and alerted us about the board outside the temple,” Chandu Harijan, said. I went to the temple along with other community members and saw the signboard. We later found out that a few ‘Darbar’ community youth wrote it. When we questioned them, they said they did not do anything wrong,”

“Our team reached the village on Tuesday and spoke to the villagers who claimed that an incident happened Monday afternoon but they didn’t want to pursue it further. The sarpanch of the village and temple’s trustee said they were unaware of the note,” said Chandrikaben Solanki, an activist.

After complaint from the villagers, police and administration officials reached the spot and removed the notice. “Somebody had written a note and it was promptly removed. There is no complaint from the villagers now,” said Dilip Kumar Rana, District Collector, Anand.

Police haven’t taken any action yet. “We have deployed police but no incident has been reported since Monday. No one has filed any complaint as everyone in the village knows that it was an act by a few miscreants to spoil the social harmony of village,” said DR Bhatia, deputy superintendent of police (SC/ST cell), Anand.

The Valmiki community members said that a panchayat was held on Monday evening on police mediation, where a few youth apologised to them. “Three-four young persons came to our house and apologised for their act. They said that they wrote the note just for fun,” said Chandu.