Ban on offering garlands in Sai Baba temple at Shirdi, to be implemented soon

Will our Hindu way of worship become extinct in the near future? 

Following terrorist threats devotees are not allowed to carry cell phones from 2007. Now ban on offering garlands is to be implemented and the dates are to be announced soon.

Countless threats have been received from the terror organisations recently that they are targeting  famous religious places like the Siddhivinayak temple, Mumbai. Offering of coconuts and garlands in this temple has been banned and police have cautioned devotees to be alert.

Shri. Shrikant Pathak, additional Superintendent of Police has now made a similar demand for putting a ban on carrying coconuts, garlands, flowers and cell phones (already banned) even in Sai Baba temple at Shirdi.

Kishore More, chief officer of the Shirdi Sai Sansthan Trust recently announced that the committee would take a  decision soon regarding banning of garlands at Shirdi Temple. This decision is due to the fact that there is a high probability of explosives being carried in the bags along with garlands. He further added that the date from which this rule will be implemented will be announced soon.

In lieu of the twin blasts recently at Disukhnagar, Hyderabad very close to the Sai Temple,  security in and around the Shirdi Sai Temple will also be beefed up.

Mumbaimirror also gives this interesting info “At present, 730 private security guards protect the 7-acre premises, funded by the Shirdi Sansthan which earned Rs 345 crore in donations last year. Fifty policemen, a sub-inspector and a bomb detection and disposal squad had also been deployed. According to a senior IPS officer, the state has sanctioned 190 constables, two sub-inspectors and one inspector for the police station. Talks are also on for the appointment of an IAS and IPS officer for the temple’s security and management.

Source

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/2/201303032013030301202837556d48212/No-garlands-inside-Shirdi-temple.html

Saibaba temple to auction gold, silver donated by devotees in October 2012 - cancelled after High Court Stay

 

The Shirdi Saibaba Sansthan Trust has announced that in October they will be auctioning of a part of the gold, silver and diamonds donated by the devotees. According to Sansthan's executive officer Kishor More, there was 280 kg of gold and 3,000 kg of silver with the trust, of which 37 kg gold and 516 kg silver had been sent to Mumbai for melting. Some of the remaining gold and silver along with diamonds would be auctioned. The details would be available on the temple's website.


Update:
Shirdi (Maharashtra), Oct 16 (IANS) The auction of offerings at the Saibaba Temple here, scheduled in three phases starting Thursday (Oct 18), has been cancelled after the Bombay High Court stayed the process, a temple trust official said.
"The Bombay High Court has stayed the proposed auction and accordingly it has been cancelled until further orders of the court," said an official of Shri Saibaba Sansthan Trust (SSST).
The official declined to give more details of the cancellation of the auction, which had generated tremendous enthusiasm among Shirdi Saibaba's devotees in India and abroad.
Now, it will be conducted at a later date after the permission of the high court, the official added.
Valuable gold and silver crowns, statues, garlands, padukas, necklaces, coins, diamonds and precious stones and other articles offered at the Saibaba Temple by devotees were due to be auctioned this week onwards at the temple premises.
The proposed auction - the third of its kind in the past decade and the second in five years - had included 32 kg of silver offerings, 18 kg of gold offerings and 52 precious stones or articles studded with precious stones.