A display screen set up outside Banke Bihari temple in Indore stirred a storm on Janmashtami night after it began flashing lines written in Urdu instead of the devotional messages the occasion usually calls for. Several bystanders who noticed the Urdu text on the outdoor screen filmed it, and the clip quickly spread across social media.
What the police found
Once the clip started circulating, police swung into action and launched an inquiry. ADCP Rajesh Dandotia said preliminary investigation revealed that the Urdu words seen on the screen were actually verses from the Quran. According to him, these verses were saved on a pen drive that also held content for various other religious events. Police said the operator running the display board had, through negligence, briefly flashed that very content on the Janmashtami screen.
Corrected as soon as the error surfaced
Police said that as soon as the mistake came to light, the person operating the display board fixed it immediately. They also clarified that no anti-religion slogan or objectionable content of any kind was shown on the screen, suggesting this looks like a technical and human lapse rather than a deliberate act. Even so, questions remain over how Quranic verses ended up running on a screen that, on Janmashtami night, would normally have carried devotional messages such as Radhe-Radhe, Nand Ke Anand Bhayo and Jai Kanhaiya Lal Ki.
Hindu organisations raise objection
After the video went viral, Hindu organisations strongly objected to the incident and demanded a thorough investigation into the entire matter. They said such a lapse during a major religious occasion like Janmashtami cannot be brushed aside.
Who is responsible, investigation still on
Police are now trying to establish who had the display board installed, who was operating it on a daily basis, and how content meant for different religious events ended up stored together on the same pen drive. Police said the case appears, at this stage, to be one of negligence, but the full picture will only be clear once the investigation is complete. The central question that remains is how Quranic verses came to flash on a screen outside the temple in place of devotional songs and religious slogans.
Janmashtami celebrations across the country
Notably, Krishna Janmashtami celebrations had been in full swing across the country since the evening of September 4, with temples making special arrangements for the night. Around the same time, a man who had been trapped in floods in Nepal said after emerging from a tunnel after 9 days that he kept chanting Hare Krishna through the ordeal, and that his life was saved on the day of Janmashtami itself.
