KOLHAPUR: As many as 17 priests and equal number of devotees were booked on Monday by the police after a fight broke out on Sunday afternoon at Kolhapur’s Jyotiba temple located at Wadi Ratnagiri village in Panhala tehsil.The videos of the fight, which went viral, shows the priests beating up some of the devotees and in some videos it shows the devotees are attempting to attack the priests.The sudden fight led to fear among the devotees present on the temple premises. Sunday being considered an auspicious day especially in the run up to the annual fair of the Jyotiba temple which witnessed turnout of over lakhs of devotees, taking place in the first week of April.According to the FIR lodged at Kodoli police station, the fight broke out after the devotees threw a broken coconut laced with gulaal towards a priest. It first led to an altercation and then the fight. However, both priests and devotees have different versions of the incident that led to the fight.The priests claim that the devotees were interfering during the puja. On the other hand devotees who all are residents of Parite village from Shahuwadi tehsil, claim that they were being obstructed from taking ‘Sasankathi’, the decorated pole signifying the flag of Lord Jyotiba inside the temple. Usually, the ‘Sasankathis’ are brought on the day of the annual fair in Chaitra month of Marathi calendar.Appaso Pawar, sub-divisional police officer of Shahuwadi division, said, “We have registered a case of rioting and disturbing the peace against the devotees and the priests. We are going to study the CCTV footage and based on it, the claims and counterclaims will be verified. After the incident, we beefed up the security. We will increase the security to 2,500 eventually till the end of the annual fair.”Meanwhile, residents of Parite observed bandh over the accusations by the priests against the devotees. Manoj Patil, sarpanch of the village, said, “The village observes a ban on consumption and sale of liquor for the three days of the fair. Therefore, the claims of the priests that the devotees who were mostly youths were under the influence of alcohol are baseless,” Patil said.
