GENEVA: Hindus across the globe are urging European Organisation for Nuclear Research, CERN, to ensure that the Lord Shiva statue installed in its complex is treated with the reverence it deserved. This reaction came after a video appeared showing a strange ritual being conducted in front of the Shiva-Nataraja statue. CERN called it a "spoof", adding, "Persons that are authorised to access the CERN site sometimes let their sense of humour go too far, and that is what has happened on this occasion."
Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, President of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged CERN Council President Professor Sijbrand de Jong and Director-General Dr Fabiola Gianotti to conclude the thorough investigation into this breach of "CERN's professional guidelines" and publish the results on its website. He said Lord Shiva was highly revered in Hinduism and was meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be trivialised in spoofs. Zed further said that Hindus were for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else if not more, but faith was something sacred and attempts at trivialising it hurt the followers.
