Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, May 20
Acharya Dhirendra Shastri alias Bageshwar Baba and New Delhi Member of Parliament Manoj Tiwari have been found guilty of travelling without seat belts on May 13 at Patna.
The Patna Superintendent of Police (Traffic) today fined Rs 1,000 for driving without a seatbelt. The BJP MP was driving the SUV from Patna Airport to a hotel at Gandhi Maidan here while Baba was sitting next to him.
The union rural development minister, Giriraj Singh, who had received the Baba at JP International airport, was also in the vehicle.
During the 13 km distance between airport and Gandhi Maidan, neither Manoj Tiwari nor Baba, who occupied the front seat, used mandatory seat belts and violated the traffic rules. SP had received complaints on May 13 and he had ordered an inquiry by the deputy SP.
After receiving the report from DSP, a fine of Rs 1,000 has been imposed. The SUV is registered in the name of a leader in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh and a copy of challan has been sent to him.
Patna police said the vehicle owner had violated traffic rules in Jhansi also for which a fine of Rs 2,000 was imposed.
Baba who left Patna after completing his five days Divine Court (Divya Darbar) at Taret Palli, 25 km from here, invited another controversy as he returned to Khajuraho in a chartered plane along with a former legislator with controversial character. Hundreds of supporters of Baba entered the prohibited zone of the runway where the plane was parked.
They disobeyed the instructions of the CISF and Airport authority officials and reached the plane. Baba himself became a victim of the stampede caused by the supporters when he fell down twice on the ground.
His bouncers who had come from Madhya Pradesh entered the Mahabir Mandir, an old and famous Hanuman temple near Patna junction with firearms. They were seen close to the restricted area of the temple. When the temple trustee, Kishore Kunal, himself an IAS officer of 1972 batch introduced himself, he was manhandled by the bouncers.
Kunal had been senior SP of Patna and later officer on special duty in the ministry of home dealing with Ayodhya affairs. The former additional DG of CISF regretted the incident and misbehaviour by the bouncers of the Baba. He said even security men of the Rashtrapati, Ramnath Kovind, who had visited the temple respected the decorum of the temple, but the bouncers of Baba could not. He said he would present a detailed account of the “indecent” behaviour in the temple in his proposed book.
