Janjivan Bureau / Gorkhpur : A police officer in Uttar Pradesh finds himself in the middle of a controversy after his photographs seeking blessings from Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on the occasion of Guru Purnima went viral on social media.
The officer Praveen Kumar Sharma, circle officer of Gorkhpur area, was photographed seeking blessing in his uniform.
Interestingly, the officer put out the photographs on his Facebook account but later restricted access to the account following an outcry.
But by then the damage had been done and the pictures were all over the social media.
In one of the photographs, the officer is shown kneeling down in front of the Chief Minister with folded hands.
In another photograph, the officer can be seen applying a tilak on Adityanath’s forehead. A third photograph shows the police officer garlanding the Chief Minister.
In his Facebook post, the police officer said he was seeking the blessings of Yogi Adityanath, 46, on the occasion of Guru Purnima not in the chief minister’s capacity but as the head of the Gorakhnath temple.
The Chief Minister is also the head priest of the influential Gorakhnath temple in the town.
But the officer’s act has triggered a debate on social media, with many asking if he should have done this in uniform.
