MUMBAI: An unsavoury incident marred weekend Ganeshotsav festivity at the Chinchpokli cha Chintamani Ganesh pandal in Parel.
On Sunday, a video surfaced on Twitter where mandal karyakartas are seen beating a man to the ground amid surging crowds seeking entry into the pandal. That tweet was later deleted.
Mandal chief Vidyadhar Ghadi said, "The incident occurred around 2.00 or 3.00am on the intervening night of Saturday-Sunday. There was an unprecedented rush because this is the only weekend this Ganeshotsav. Our volunteers were manning the barricades and trying to stop the crowds from surging inside from all directions."
Ghadi said, "The man who was beaten was a chain snatcher who tried to rob a woman devotee's necklace in the melee. As she screamed, the thief tried to run inside the pandal. That was when our volunteers beat him to stop him fleeing. In fact our boys too have suffered injuries to the hand."
However, the woman in question is untraceable so the mandal was unable to prove its claim. The victim who was beaten has not filed a police complaint nor has the woman who was allegedly being robbed.
The mandal alleged that this incident could be an "orchestrated attempt to provoke his karyakartas and sully the name of the 103-year pandal".
"Darshan is under way 24 hours so our boys are well trained in crowd management. Through the season we conduct meetings on how to make darshan easy for worshipers. Never has such an incident like this occurred in our mandal before," Ghadi said.
Mandals in the Lalbaug-Parel belt routinely receive thousands of devotees during Ganeshotsav. In fact one lakh people had crammed the streets to get a glimpse of Chinchpokli Cha Chintamani during its aagman yatra a few days before the festival.
It is equally true that cases of high handedness and violence by volunteers have been reported from neighbouring mandals like Lalbaug Cha Raja in the past.
