Chamarajanagar bandh today over burning of temple car

Several organisations have given Chamarajanagar bandh call on Monday condemning the incident of setting the Ratha (car) of Chamarajeshwara temple on fire by a group of unidentified persons on
Saturday night.

The incident of miscreants setting fire to the temple was captured on CCTV camera installed at the entrance of a bank near the temple.

The chariot is covered with coconut fronds once the car festival is over. On Saturday night, the residents in the vicinity who found the chariot in flames, immediately alerted the Fire and Emergency Services department, who rushed to the spot and doused the flames, averting a major damage.

The left portion of the chariot has been damaged in the fire. Dog squad and fingerprint experts were pressed into service on Sunday morning.

Following the incident, leaders of various communities and representatives of organisations staged a protest in front of the temple, demanding the arrest of the perpatrators.

The representatives of several organisations held an emergency meeting condemning the act of miscreants and gave a call for Chamarajanagar bandh on Monday.

They demanded a high-level probe into the incident. They also demanded that a new chariot be built before the next car festival to be held in Ashada, which falls in the month of July. The organisations further sought that a committee be constituted for developing the temple, and vehicle parking on the temple premises be banned.

Manjunathagowda, a local leader alleged that the district administration and Kannada and Culture department were misusing the temple premises to conduct various programmes. They took Tahsildar K Purandara to task during the meeting and insisted that the deputy commissioner should come to the spot. Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha leader Vatal Nagaraj visited the temple and extended his support to the bandh call.

CCTV cameras defunct

The three CCTV cameras installed by the district police have become dysfunctional since several months.  The town police, who accessed the CCTV footage from the camera installed at the State Bank of Mysore premises, found out that a man clad in dhothi had come near the chariot at 1.30 am. Within a few moments the chariot was found engulfed in flames. However, the face of the person could not be identified.