A self-styled godman, Baba Yogi Chaitanya Akash, has built a temple illegally at an altitude of 16,500 feet on the Sunderdhunga glacier in Bageshwar district of Uttarakhand. His justification, as per a report in The Times of India, is that he received instructions from a goddess in his dreams.
Defying all ecological sensitivities of the region, it was left to Baba Yogi Chaitanya Akash to convince the local villagers to take his project further by claiming a directive from Devi Bhagwati in his dreams for having the temple at Devi Kund. The step has invited outrage and anger from the locals who say that it is against their rituals particularly when the Sacred Nanda Raj Yatra is on.
The local administration of the temple has come into action only after its construction. Sub-divisional magistrate, Kapkot, Anurag Arya accepted the problem and said that officials from revenue, forest and police departments would soon take action to remove the encroachment and deal with the godman accordingly.
The incident has thrown to the fore how such an encroachment in the sensitive ecological area could happen without any official knowledge at the outset, likely to affect the local communities and the environment adversely.
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