SATNA: A day after the directive by the Religious Trust and Endowment Department to remove Muslim employees from the temple management surfaced on the internet, a statement from the Muslim employee himself has been reportedly recorded.
Abid Khan-an employed as the clerk of the Sharda Mata Temple since 1993 said that two years ago the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad has filed a complaint demanding the removal of Muslim employees. ” But nothing like that has happened with us. Neither we have removed nor we have received any information related to it.”
He further urged the district administration and the state govt to do justice to them. According to him the complaint by the right-wing extremists was wrong. Speaking about his terms with the temple administration – Abid said,” We never had any such problem with anyone to date. If they had an issue we should have been removed earlier,”
Abid is currently attached to the SDM court since the matter came to light.
Ayyub- an employee of the temple since 1998 looks after the water management of the premises.
There is no response from top officers involved in the case so far.
It should be noted that the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh are just six months away.
The Department of Culture in its order has also mentioned that a notification regarding the same had been issued earlier also, but no response was received. Therefore, complying with the directive (letter) issued by the department regarding the same, a report should be submitted within three days. The department is headed by senior BJP leader Usha Thakur, who is also the Tourism Minister in Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Cabinet.
The Sharda Mata Temple is situated atop Trikut hill, the temple is a revered Hindu shrine in the Vindhya region, which has numerous mythological stories attached to it, including about ‘Alha’ and ‘Udal’.