Mice Found on Prasad Packets, Siddhivinayak Temple Trust Denies Viral Claim

Mumbai: Amid the ongoing controversy over Tirupati laddus, a video and photo, which shows rats on ‘prasad’ packet allegedly of Mumbai’s famous Siddhivinayak temple, have surfaced. Shree Siddhivinayak Ganpati Mandir Trust has denied the Prasad being contaminated and ordered an enquiry into it.

Siddhivinayak Temple witnesses more than 50,000 devotees every day on weekdays and around one lakh devotees on weekends. Around 50,000 pockets of Laddus are sold to the devotees everyday. The video and photo have been floating on social media. In the viral video and photo, the rats are seen crawling on Prasad pockets, which contain Laddu.

Speaking with this newspaper, Sunil Dasharath Giri, trustee of Shree Siddhivinayak Ganpati Mandir, said that he had received the video and photo on Monday evening. But prima-facie, it appears that it does not belong to the temple. However, the authorities are constituting an internal committee of the members to probe and verify the video and photo as the premises of the temple are not visible in the video. “In addition to this, we are also demanding an inquiry by an IPS officer into this. We will submit our memorandum on Wednesday to the concerned authorities,” Mr. Giri said.

Sada Sarvankar, MLA of the Eknath Shinde-led Shiv Sena and chairman of Siddhivinayak Temple Trust said that the rats are seen in a plastic bag in a blue colour container in the viral video and photo. “Lakhs of laddus are distributed in a day and the laddus are prepared in the place, which is very neat and clean. The photo shows a dirty place (where the container was kept and a photo was clicked). At the first glimpse, I can see that the video is not of the temple, and it has been recorded somewhere else. I don’t know why it has been done. We have CCTVs, we will examine the footages and conduct a complete inquiry,” Mr. Sarvankar said.

The MLA assured that the temple makes every effort to ensure the prasad is prepared in a clean place. “Ghee, cashew and other ingredients are first sent for testing at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's lab and used after approval. Even water is tested at the lab. We pay full attention to ensure that the prasad given to devotees is pure,” he said.