According to the forest department, no formal permission was given for the wedding ceremony of the son of minister Khajan Dass, conducted on Sunday at Sureshwari Devi temple in Haridwar. Dass says they had taken ‘tacit consent’
The wedding ceremony of the son of Uttarakhand’s
The wedding ceremony of Anuj, the son of minister Khajan Dass, was conducted on Sunday at the Sureshwari Devi temple in Haridwar. However, according to the forest department, no formal permission had been granted for the event.
For his part, Dass said he has been visiting the temple for the past 10 years, and thousands of devotees continue to go there regularly. “Arrangements are usually such that no disturbance is caused; there is no noise, and people often gather there as an expression of their faith. I had spoken to the forest officials, but they did not mention the need for a formal approval. Maun sehmati hui thi (there was a tacit consent), and around 200 guests had been invited for the event. A havan kund and a pandal had been arranged, and we had tried to get silent generators,” he told The Indian Express.
Sources said that as many as 722 people visited the temple last Sunday, while 850 people were recorded on the day of the wedding. A senior officer in the department said that in March, Dass, then an MLA, had met with him while on a field visit to the area where the temple stood. “We spoke for a while, and he mentioned that his son was getting married and they planned to visit the temple for the deity’s blessings. I congratulated his son, and that was taken as a tacit consent,” he said.
Admitting that no formal consent could be finalised, Dass pointed out that a large number of people visit the place, especially during Navratri, and claimed that wild animals do not enter the premises. “No explicit permission was discussed, but had I been aware of any requirement for prior permission, I would have moved the ceremony to any other of the hundred temples in Haridwar,” he said. Dass also said that he had organised a bhandara earlier without any issue and that he respects the norms in ecosensitive zones. About the case registered under the Wildlife Protection Act against the temple management, Dass said that they were not at fault. “I respect environmental norms and laws, but the matter now appears to be a political conspiracy,” he said.
Rajaji Tiger Reserve acting Director Rajiv Dhiman said that a case has been registered against the temple committee for the offence. “The temple committee did not inform us of the event. We are also investigating the roles of officials and why no action was taken prior to the event,” he said, adding that he was not informed of the event.
Dhiman also said that generators, coolers, tents, and chairs at the venue were removed when they came to know of the incident.
