PANAJI (INDIA)
Indo-Asian News Service /NDTV
July 23, 2018
The court has granted him interim bail until the next hearing on Wednesday.
Goa’s Mangueshi temple priest who was charged for molesting two women, has claimed that one of them fabricated the charges against him after he refused to allow the unmarried woman into the sanctum sanctorum.
The court has granted him interim bail until the next hearing on Wednesday.
The accused, Dhanajay Bhave, told the Ponda additional district and sessions court on Saturday, that he “tried to explain to the complainant that as per the norms and the rules of the devasthan, unmarried daughters/unmarried girls cannot enter the gabhara (sanctum sanctorum) of the temple”.
Bhave, who has worked at the temple as a priest for 28 years, even told her to sit outside till her parents returned.
However, the complainant picked up a quarrel with Bhave and insisted on entering the gabhara, as according to her, there is no basis for refusal, he told the court in his petition.
Bhave has been charged under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 354 for outraging the modesty of a woman.
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