Puri Jagannath Temple Servitor’s Assistant Held For Sexual Assault On Boy, 3rd Incident In 1 Year

Puri: A servitor’s assistant of Jagannath Temple in the pilgrim town of Odisha’s Puri has been arrested for allegedly sodomising a minor boy inside the shrine.

The accused has been identified as Sudarsan Mishra (42). He allegedly sexually assaulted the 13-year-old boy, who has been learning vedic chants and hymns at the Sanskrit toll run by Puja Panda Nijog at the 12th-century shrine. A complaint in this regard was lodged at Singhadwar police station on Tuesday evening.

“He would forcibly take me to an isolated place inside the shrine and sexually abused me whenever I was alone. This has been going on for the past one-and-a-half months. On Tuesday, when he sexually assaulted me near Niladri Vihar museum around 1 pm, I raised an alarm and ran away,” the complainant said.

Mishra, who police said did not belong to the servitor community, has been booked Under sections 377 (unnatural offences), and 511 (attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life) of the IPC and section 10 of POCSO.

This is the third such arrest since 2021 from the temple precincts.

On December 10, 2021, Laxmi Narayan Khuntia (65), a servitor of Laxmi temple, a subsidiary shrine in Jagannath Temple, was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy inside the shrine.

On October 9, 2021, police arrested Sangram Dash, a priest of Bamana temple, another subsidiary shrine, for allegedly molesting a minor girl from Hyderabad on the temple premises.