Days after a major fire gutted the Meenakshi Amman temple in Madurai, the Joint Commissioner of the temple ordered 115 shops near the premises to draw their shutters. The licensed shops were told to vacate by 11 am on 8 February.
The Meenakshi Amman temple in Madurai was engulfed in flames on the night of 2 February. It is suspected that the fire was sparked by a short circuit in one of the shops’ electrical fittings, Hindustan Times reported. Another theory is that the fire may have been sparked by a ritual carried out by one of the shops to ward off evil. According to the Times of India, fire safety officials said that this was a disaster waiting to happen.