Bhopal:

Two people were killed and three others were injured after a massive thunderstorm struck Madhya Pradesh’s Ujjain district.

In the Mahakal Lok Temple corridor, which was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October 2022, six out of the seven Saptrishi statues have been displaced and two damaged. No one was injured due to the displacement of the six statues from their pedestals at the temple corridor.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan spoke to the Ujjain collector and divisional commissioner to look into the matter.

Some 50 trees and many electric poles were uprooted. There are 155 idols in Mahakal Lok. The damaged statues will be repaired by the contractor.

One person died in Ujjain city after a tree fell on him. The other died in Nagada due to a kutcha house’s wall collapse. Three were injured in the same district.

“Two of the six displaced statues have been damaged after getting displaced from the pedestals. Since these statues were in the initial stages of the five years defect liability period, the company that made and installed them will replace them at the earliest,” said Ujjain collector Kumar Purushottam.

“We’ve shifted the displaced and damaged statues with the help of a crane. Audit of the other statues made from the same FRP (fibre-reinforced plastic) material will be done at the earliest and responsibility will be soon fixed on the displacement of the six statues,” he said.

The opposition Congress alleged major irregularities in the construction work of the temple corridor and demanded strict action against those responsible for shoddy work.

The BJP shot back, saying the Congress is doing politics and spreading confusion without giving any facts.

The corridor, said to be one of the longest in the country, traverses the old Rudrasagar lake, which has been revived as part of the redevelopment project around the Mahakaleshwar temple, one of the 12 ‘jyotirlingas’ in the country.

Talking about the local weather conditions, India Meteorological Department’s Bhopal centre Duty Officer J P Vishwakarma told PTI that the forecast for Sunday said gusty winds would blow at the speed of 40 to 50 kmph at isolated places in Ujjain during the day.

Talking over phone, he also said, “We don’t have an automatic weather station in Ujjain to measure the speed of the wind in Ujjain. We are going to demand for it.”