Mayor’s brother accused of threatening engineer

VADODARA: A mechanical engineering graduate was allegedly threatened by Kalpesh Dangar, brother of mayor and aspirant of BJP ticket Bharat Dangar, at Tavteshwar Mahadev temple on Jail Road on Saturday morning.
Krunal Patel (25), who lives near the temple, went to offer his prayers on Saturday morning. Patel alleged that Kalpesh, with whom he had been having arguments since two weeks over offering prayers, did not allow him to pray at the ‘Shiv Linga’ on Saturday as well.“Every day since two weeks he had been asking me to pray at the other ‘Shiv Linga’, but on Saturday morning I had decided that I will not listen to him and offer prayers there itself,” said Patel.
Patel also alleged that when he started to pray, Kalpesh threatened to beat him up and then his men dragged him out of the temple and asked him to keep calm. After the alleged humiliation, Patel called police control room and when a PCR van came there, he told the cops about the incident. “When the police reached the temple, I called Kalpesh out and when the police asked him about the incident he lied to them. I then told the police that I would like to register the complaint but Kalpesh refused to come to police station and the police just kept looking,” he said.
Later, Patel refused to register the FIR and has planned to give a written complaint to police commissioner and district collector on Monday.
When Kalpesh was contacted, he said that he did not stop Patel from offering his prayers.
“I had applied sandalwood ‘tilak’ on the ‘Shiv Linga’ therefore I asked him to pour water after my prayers are over or to pour on the side, but he created a scene out of nothing and made allegations against me,” said Kalpesh. He also said that he was alone at the temple and was not flanked by any of his men.