Maharashtra: Man booked for assembling commuters on Samruddhi Expressway and reciting mantras to avoid accidents

A man has been charged with organising a crowd at a location on the Samruddhi Expressway where a bus fire lost 25 lives,  and installing a mahamrutyunjay yantra and reciting mantras to prevent accidents, police said.

Hamid Dabholkar of the Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, an anti-superstition group, had objected to it and demanded police action into the matter. Twenty five people were charred to death after a private bus caught fire on the Samruddhi Expressway in Maharashtra’s Buldhana district on July 1.

On July 23, Buldhana resident Nilesh Adhav gathered some people at the accident site at Pimpalkhuta in Sindkhedraja area of the expressway and installed a ‘mahamrutyunjay yantra’ and recited the mahamrutyunjay japa, as per the police.

Adhav claimed on social media that due to the mahamrutyunjay yantra, no accident will take place within five-km stretch and misled the people, the police said. The Buldhana police on Monday registered a case against Adhav under provisions of the Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013 and a probe was on into it.