Bhubaneswar: 8 held for scuffle on lunar eclipse day

BHUBANESWAR: Kharvela Nagar police on Wednesday arrested eight persons for vandalising the venue of an event where a group of people organised a community feast on lunar eclipse to dispel myths related to consuming food. The attackers were ritualists, who were opposing consumption of cooked meals during the eclipse.
Two groups had a violent clash on Tuesday after ritualists attacked them by pelting stones and throwing cow dung on them at Lohia Academy here. The rationalists lodged a police complaint against the ritualists for vandalising the venue and attacking them with stones and cow dung. The ritualists had also lodged a counter-FIR against the rationalists.
A complaint has also been lodged against rationalists at Singhadwar police station in Puri allegedly for giving a defamatory statement against Lord Jagannath. Besides, tension mounted at Berhampur when ritualists, including members of a saffron outfit and priests, attacked a group of rationalists for eating cooked food during lunar eclipse.
They (rationalists) are hurting the religious sentiments of lakhs of people, who have been shunning cooked food and worshipping deities during eclipses as per the age-old religious scripts. "We cannot accept it that all of a sudden a group of people come out and call it baseless and unscientific," said Kameswar Tripathy, president of Odisha Sevayat Mahasangha.