The Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra has decided to dismiss 167 employees on grounds of indiscipline and irregularities. Significantly, this includes 114 Muslim employees, and the decision came after Hindu groups demanded their removal.
However, the temple administration said that the decision is not based on religion or caste, but solely on the issue of employee misconduct.
For the past few weeks, Hindu groups were demanding the removal of Muslim employees from the Shani Shingnapur temple. Acharya Tushar Bhosale, head of the BJP Spiritual Coordination Front, had announced a protest on June 14 in this regard. But a day before the protest, the temple trust held a meeting, and decided to dismiss 167 employees, including the Muslims.
Maharashtra: The administration of the Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar district has decided to dismiss 167 employees on grounds of indiscipline and irregularities. The administration has clarified that the decision is not based on religion or caste but solely on the issue… pic.twitter.com/2Ma4E55lSX
— IANS (@ians_india) June 13, 2025
The temple administration had said earlier that the Muslim employees work in the agriculture department, waste management department and education department of the temple trust. However, out of 114 Muslim employees, 99 were not coming to work for last 5 months. The trust had said that the salaries of all these employees have been delayed.
Accordingly, the temple trust made a list of employees having discipline issues, and decided to dismiss 167 of them, including all the 114 Muslims.
