Devotees protest shifting of bull during Car festival
Puri, Jun 1 (UNI) Hundreds of bull roaming in this pilgrim city have found supporters to oppose their shifting during the coming car festival.
The residents and devotees have flayed the decision of the high level Rath Yatra Coordination Committee to shift hundreds of bulls from this holy city to Saptasajya in Dhenkanal to mitigate the bovine menace during the car-festival.
The various NGOs of Dhenkanal too had protested the shifting of bulls.
Sri Jagannath temple Chief Administrator S C Mahapatra in response to the proposal of the committee had resolved to shift the bulls from the city.The temple authority also agreed to provide the necessary transport charges for the shifting.
The citizen committee,however, had opposed the move stating that the devotees worshipped the bulls as the representative of lord Shiva and feed them with fodders every day.
Some of the devotees had even formed a body to serve the ailing bulls. The members of the citizen committee today met the District Collector and urged him to make arrangement to keep the bulls in a barricaded facility on the outskirts of the city.
They further said there would be no dearth of donors to pay for feeding the bulls. A manager of local Goshalla even agreed to keep at least 25 bulls in its facility, they informed.
There are at least two hundred bulls in the city. The people often sustained injuries during their fight. To check the growing menace, a resolution was recently passed to shift them outside the city as a safety measures since lakhs of people would throng the city during the Car festival next month.
The Collector has asked the Citizen Committee members and the officers to visit the Dhenkanal farm and examine the facility there to accommodate such a large number of bulls.
He had also requested the temple administration to provide three acres of land out side the city to open Goshalla there to house bulls.
UNI XC DP SJC RL HS1911