It is about security of a Chief Minister! No one can question; not even bereaved family members of the dead.
The Swargadwar at Puri, where dead bodies are cremated almost every moment, had to be closed for five hours ahead of visit of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. Patnaik visited it to pay tributes at his father Biju Patnaik’s cemetery on his death anniversary.
While it is a customary that the funeral fire does not put off on the cremation ground, the morning hours of Sunday emerged to be an exception only. The administration didn’t allow any dead body to enter the Swargadwar, conceived as the gateway to heaven, from 6 am for the CM’s visit.
Patnaik reached Swargadwar at around 11 am and laid a wreath at Biju Patnaik’s memorial platform in the presence of Bhubaneswar MP Prasanna Patsani, Puri Municipality Chairperson Jayant Sarangi and MlA and District Planning Committee Chairperson Sameer Ranjan Das.
A large number of bereaved people with kin’s bodies from various places of the State waited for hours till the Chief Minister left the site after about a five-minute stay there.