Amid row over animal fat being used in laddu prasadam at Tirupati temple, another controversy has erupted at Siddhivinayak temple in Mumbai where rats were found in the packs of laddu prasadam. A video of the incident has gone viral on social media platforms.
Notably, the purported video raised concerns over the hygiene and safety of the prasadam among the devotees. This comes amid the row surrounding 'animal fat' being used in Tirupati Prasadam at Lord Venkateswara temple in Andhra Pradesh.
The viral video purportedly showed some baby rats being found in the packets. However, the temple trust turned down the claims and said the video is not from the temple premises, but an investigation will be launched to find out the truth.
"Rats are visible in a plastic bag (in the video) and there's a blue colour container. Lakhs of laddus are distributed during the day and the place the laddus are prepared is very neat and clean. The video shows a dirty place, I can see that the video is not of the temple, and it has been recorded somewhere outside. I don't know why it has been done. We have CCTVs, we will scan the CCTVs and conduct complete inquiry," says Shree Siddhivinayak Ganpati Mandir Trust chairman Sadanand Shankar Sarvankar.
Reacting to the viral posts, Executive Officer at Siddhivinayak Temple, Veena Patil, stated that, “In the photos and videos, the premises of the temple are not visible. An investigation will be conducted by a DCP-level officer and a committee will be constituted.”
This comes days after the laddu prasadam came under ascanner at the famous Tirupati Temple in Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on September 18 claimed that animal fat was used in Tirupati laddoos during the previous government when YS Jagan Mohan Reddy was the Chief Minister of the state.
A similar row erupted earlier in the day at Sri Venkateswara Temple in Tirupati where a female devotee alleged that she found tobacco wrapped in paper inside a laddu given as prasadam.
The devotee, Donthu Padmavati from Khammam district, reported that she visited the temple on September 19 and stated that she discovered the tobacco while preparing to distribute the prasadam to her neighbours.
In her video evidence, she expressed her shock upon finding the tobacco pieces wrapped in a small paper within the laddu.
Meanwhile, the country's food safety regulator issued a show cause notice to a Tamil Nadu-based firm for allegedly supplying substandard ghee to temple authority Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam even as the chorus for a thorough probe and strict action over the alleged use of animal fat in Tirupati laddus grew louder.
On Monday, a four-hour purification ritual was carried out at the revered shrine to propitiate Lord Venkateswara Swamy after alleged "sacrilegious practices such as mixing animal fats" in making Tirupati laddus (consecrated sweet) and others, temple sources said.
