Bhubaneswar temple servitor gets 18 months jail for foreigner’s sexual harassment

Judicial Magistrate First Class of Bhubaneswar, Payal Gupta completed the trial and sentenced the servitor for sexual harassment of the tourist on February 19

BHUBANESWAR: A 24-year-old servitor at Bhubaneswar’s Lingaraj temple has been sentenced to 18 months in jail for sexual harassment of a 28-year-old woman tourist from Sweden in February, people familiar with the matter said.

The incident took place on February 19 after she hired Mohapatra to be her guide around the main temple and other smaller temples (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Judicial Magistrate First Class of Bhubaneswar, Payal Gupta sentenced Kundan Mohapatra, a servitor of Lingaraj temple, under sections 354 (criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354-A (sexual harassment) and 341 (wrongful restraint). In her order, the judge said Mohapatra kept on touching the tourist despite her protests.

The incident took place on February 19 after she hired Mohapatra to be her guide around the main temple and other smaller temples. At one point, the servitor started touching her and did not stop even after she told him to back off. Eventually, she ran away and later reported to incident to the Lingaraj police station.

Mahapatra was arrested the following day and the police submitted the chargesheet within 72 hours.

Bhubaneswar-Cuttack commissioner of police Sanjeeb Panda said his team accorded top priority to the case and completed the investigation quickly. “The investigating officer and the prosecuting team of Lingaraj police station deserve to be complimented for accomplishing success in the criminal justice system in just 28 days,” he said.

The trial started four days later. The foreign national’s statement was recorded on the first day. There were seven prosecution witnesses in the case.

The speedy conviction is a sharp contrast to Odisha’s poor track record of convicting men accused of crimes against women. According to the National Crime Records Bureau report of 2022, the conviction rate for criminal cases against women in Odisha was 9.2%, while the national average was 25.3%. Only Karnataka, Gujarat, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Assam fared worse than Odisha in conviction rate. At 70%, Uttar Pradesh had the highest conviction rate.