Bhubaneswar: A Bhubaneswar-based realtor has been arrested for allegedly duping devotees by illegally selling ‘Mahaprasad’ of Shree Jagannath Temple through an online platform.
The accused has been identified as Dispoza Pattnaik (34). He runs a real estate business from a prominent mall here.
According to the complaint, a website, shreeprasad.org, offered ‘Mahaprasad’ online using images of the 12th-century shrine to misled people. It further claimed that the Mahaprasad is sourced directly from the Srimandir’s Rosaghara in Puri and delivered to their doorsteps.
The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) filed a formal complaint on October 22 at Puri cyber police station, highlighting the illegal online sale of Mahaprasad. Subsequent investigation revealed that Pattnaik was the mastermind behind the creation of the website.
Earlier, the SJTA security administrator Hemant Kumar Padhi had also lodged a complaint against a food delivery aggregator for falsely advertising the availability of Lord Jagannath’s Annaprasad or Mahaprasad (Abadha) for online delivery. The advertisement also claimed to offer prasad from several other temples in the state, with enticing offers during the ongoing holy month of Kartika.
Puri SP Prateek Singh had then said that the online food delivery app was asked to remove the promotional content for online sale of ‘mahaprasad’ of Lord Jagannath from its mobile application.
In recent months, numerous fake websites and apps have surfaced, deceiving devotees by collecting payments in Indian rupees and US dollars for hotel bookings, darshan slots, and Mahaprasad. Servitors have demanded stringent measures against these fraudulent online platforms.
Earlier, the state government had also rejected proposals by some organisations for the sale of ‘Mahaprasad’ on online platforms. “Though it was a good idea to provide the ‘prasad’ to devotees worldwide, the government and the SJTA rejected such proposals to preserve its sanctity,” Law Minister Prithviraj Harichandan had stated two months ago.