Employee suspended for roughing up woman, son at Guruvayur temple

GURUVAYUR: The Guruvayur Temple Managing Committee Friday suspended a temple employee for allegedly roughing up a woman devotee and pushing away her son.

A panel meeting presided over by the committee chairman T V Chandramohan, also suspended an overseer of the Guruvayur Electricity Section for his suspected role in leaking out of the CCTV visuals of the incident that happened on February 23.

The panel also decided to seek a police investigation on leak out of the CCTV visuals, taking it as a "security lapse".

The decision to suspend employee V Radhakrishnan and overseer Anson was taken after the committee members viewed the clipping, beamed by local television channels yesterday.

The Deputy Administrator of the temple had been asked to submit a detailed report on the incident and explain the failure to report it promptly the same day.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, Chandramohan said the temple board considered it as a serious incident since the primary duty of the temple employees was to help devotees worship without any hassles.

However, he said the impression being created that this sort of behaviour was rampant among the temple employees was painful.

The visuals showed the woman being pushed away by a temple guard. Her son was beaten up by the guards when he approached them, questioning the rough treatment meted out to his mother.

Devaswom Minister V S Sivakumar had yesterday sought a report on the incident from the temple authorities.