Order Asking Cops to Dress as Priests at Kashi Vishwanath Dham Sparks Row, Akhilesh Fumes

The Uttar Pradesh Police’s order to ensure deployment of cops in saffron attires at the Kashi Vishwanath Dham in Varanasi has sparked a fresh controversy. Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday slammed the UP Government and demanded suspension of the police officer who ordered the cops to “dress as priests”. He also questioned the police manual and questioned what if any “thug takes advantage” of this and “loots the innocent public”.

“According to which police manual is it correct to have policemen dressed as priests? Those who give such orders should be suspended. If tomorrow any thug takes advantage of this and loots the innocent public, then how will the UP government and administration answer? Condemnable,” Yadav posted on his ‘X’ (previously Twitter) handle.

The SP chief’s reaction came after Varanasi Police Commissioner’s recent order on deployment of cops at the temple in priests’ attires.

However, Mohit Agarwal, police commissioner of Varanasi, who shot the order, said, “Unlike other places, the deployment at the religious place is altogether a different thing. Unlike other places, there is no law and order issue here at the temple and, hence, there was a need to opt for different tactics to man the crowd. It has been observed that in temples, people give more weightage to the priest and, hence, it was thought to deploy cops in the attires of priests at the temple.”

Meanwhile, SP leaders said that they are likely to file a complaint with the Election Commission against the change of dress code of the security personnel posted on the premises of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi. Besides, they also questioned the power of a police commissioner stating that the CP does not have the right to change the dress code of a security personnel.

“The Commissioner of Police does not have any right to change the dress of the security staff. Sudden change of dress, amidst elections, is a sheer breach of model code of conduct,” said Udaiveer Singh, senior SP leader.

Some of the associates of Kashi Vishwanath Dham, too, raised a question on the move and said that nobody had the right to change the dress of a cop on duty.