Religious bodies demand opening of Ratna Bhandar of Sri Jagannath temple

Puri : Two religious institutions have demanded to open the Ratna Bhandar of Sri Jagannath temple which has not been opened for the last 44 years.
Convenor of Sri Jagannath Bhakt Parishad Suryanarayan Rath in a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has demanded to open the Bhitar Ratna Bhandar of Srimandir and compare with the inventory made 44 year ago to ascertain the exact position of the huge ornaments and precious stones stored in the treasury.
Earlier, convenor of Jagannath Sena Priyadarshan Pattnaik has also made a similar demand to open the inner treasury.
While Bahar bhandar (outer treasury) contains daily use of gold and silver ornaments of the trinity, the Bhitar Bhandar is rarely opened.
The State government after taking over the Srimandir management had opened the Bhitar Ratnabhandar in 1978 and again in 1984.
A detailed inventory of ornaments with weight, approximate value and description of precious stones besides silver ornaments were made by the then administration.
The element of doubt among devotees over safety of valuables of deities in Ratna Bhandar crept in as neither the district nor the temple administration could provide the proper key to open the treasury door.
Opening of Bharat Ratna Bhandar was necessitated following a high court direction to examine the stability of the structure by the Archaeological Survey of India(ASI) in 2019.
An 18-member panel composed of ASI experts, servitors and temple officials was formed to open the Bhitar Ratna Bhandar door.
The attempt was abandoned for lack of a proper key to open it. Surprisingly a set of keys was recovered from the district record room in a sealed envelope with a tag “duplicate keys of Bharat Ratna Bhandar” , announced the then collector.
Devotees questioned the administration whereabouts of the original keys. After much hue and cry the state government ordered a judicial inquiry by a sitting justice of the state high court.
After a month long inquiry no clue was found about missing original keys and the mystery over the missing of original keys and safety of the deity wealth further deepens.