Hindus are upset over having images of their deities Ganesh and Lakshmi pasted on beer bottles by an Australian brewery, calling it highly inappropriate.
Hindu leader Rajan Zed said in a statement in Nevada on Saturday that inappropriate usage of Hindu deities or concepts or symbols for commercial use was not acceptable because it hurt the sentiments of the devotees.
"Lord Ganesh and Goddess Lakshmi were highly revered in Hinduism and they were meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be used in selling beer for mercantile greed," said Zed. He is president of Universal Society of Hinduism.
Symbols of any faith should not be mishandled, he added.
He demanded that the brewery withdraw the beer bottles carrying the juxtaposed images.