Shirdi Sai Temple Trust, To Ban Devotees Bringing Flowers and Garlands - Fearing Terror Attack

At the revered shrine of Sai Baba in Shirdi. Carrying garlands and flowers would soon be a thing of the past. This is because the Shirdi Sai Sansthan trust, which runs the temple, has decided to impose a ban on devotees bringing flowers and garlands into the temple in order to avert any possibility of a terror attack on the temple.


The trust has decided not to allow devotees from bringing garlands and flowers, which terror groups could use to conceal bombs and sneak in, in case of an attack.


The chief officer of the trust Kishore More, said "Many devotees buy big garlands that are brought in bags and it is difficult to keep check on each and every devotee. We feel that some terror groups might exploit an opportunity to sneak in an explosives-laden garland into the shrine by disguising themselves as devotees and we do not want to take a chance with that."


More also said “"that the trust has decided to discontinue allowing garlands into the shrine. He says that the temple has been on the terror hit list of many radical organizations and there is no point in taking chance, especially since the recent twin blasts at Dilsukhnagar went off close to a Sai Baba temple.”


The trust will now meet with the committee of the temple before implementing this order. In the year 2007 the temple had banned carrying cell phones into the shrine after receiving terror threat. The constant terror threat to the temple, in the recent years, has forced the state government to provide the temple with additional security forces.


At present, about 730 private security guards are deployed on duty at the temple by the trust which is leading to spend a substantial portion of the donations received, towards the security of the temple. Apart from this, the state government has appointed 50 policemen and a bomb detection and disposal squad on standby at the temple.