They were meant to serve food at a temple festival

Many a stomach was churned after a WhatsApp video circulated on Wednesday showed bundles of plantain leaves, clearly meant to serve food on a large scale for a public gathering, stacked against a wall abutting the urinals inside the Bharathipuram public toilet run by the Dharmapuri Municipality.

The toilet abuts the Dharmapuri cemetery.

The plantain leaves, purportedly for serving food at a temple festival, had been left in the stinking public toilet to be later collected by unknown persons.

Following this, a section of the media inspected the toilet to find shreds of plantain leaves that had been dropped as the leaves were being taken out.

According to the account of a woman maintenance worker employed by the Municipality as contract staff, some men had left the bundles in the public toilet, and they took it back later. She had also asked them to leave some of the leaves behind for her livestock.

At first, the video spawned rumours that the plantain leaves were meant to serve food for a government event, which was, however, found to be untrue on verification.

The Hindu contacted Dharmapuri Municipal Commissioner Maheshwari, who was at a meeting in Chennai. “We were not aware of this until now. The Sanitation Inspector will be sent to the toilet to inspect,” the Commissioner said.