The chief priest of Bhairavsthan Temple in Palpa has been found to have inflicted sexual violence on girls and women.
Chief priest Jeet Nath Yogi of the temple at Ribdikot Rural Municipality 4 has been found to be touching chest of women and girls in the pretext of offering tika, and giving prasad (edibles offered to deity during worship).
Devotees are allowed to worship the deities outside the main temple themselves but not the Bharaiv Baba inside the main temple. They have to offer the prasad and flowers through the priests. Yogi, 70, has been found to be touching the women at the narrow place where they hand over their offerings and get them back.
Setopati has acquired a video showing Yogi clearly touching chest of the female devotees deliberately.
“The hands touched my breasts when the priest gave the basket (of prasad) to me. I first presumed he may have touched inadvertently,” a girl told Setopati. “I then stayed there and looked at him put tika on my sisters and friends. He did the same to them. He touched their breasts stretching his hands.”
The 21-year-old girl who went to the temple from Rupandehi told Setopati that she talked with other female devotees about the issue after that and all of them confirmed that Yogi touched their chest. The women and girls then made video recording of the chief priest touching the girls and women.
The girl did not tell anyone in the family about the incident after returning from the temple. When her maternal aunt went to the temple two weeks later Yogi touched the aunt similarly.
They had gone in a group of nine and claimed that Yogi touched all five who offered prasad. They then complained with the temple management committee.
Head of the management committee Min Bahadur Budhathoki told Setopati that he directed the closed-circuit television camera installed in the temple toward the chief priest without knowledge of Yogi after hearing about the complaint from the girls and women. “Chief priest Yogi was seen to be returning the basket touching and pushing women’s chest in the video. Priest of such a big place of devotion apparently was inflicting violence on women. The temple management committee will punish him,” Budhathoki stated.
Chief District Officer of Palpa Bandhu Prasad Bastola told Setopati that no formal complaint against Yogi had been received, and added that Yogi would be arrested even if just a single person were to complain.
Yogi had gone from Dang to become priest at the temple in 2002.
The temple was built by the then Sen king Mani Mukunda Sen in 1565 BS. The then army chief Khadga Shumsher then installed a brass trishul at the temple. The trishul is believed to be the biggest in Asia.
