YouTuber who flew drone over Jagannath Temple given conditional bail by Orissa HC

The Orissa High Court has granted conditional bail to YouTuber Animesh Chakraborty, accused in the Puri temple drone incident.

By Sudeshna Panda Last updated Mar 6, 2023 1

drone over jagannath temple — File Photo

Puri: The Orissa High Court has granted conditional bail to YouTuber Animesh Chakraborty, accused in the Puri temple drone incident on Monday.

A bench comprising Justice V Narsingh heard Animesh’s bail plea and granted him conditional bail. A case was filed in Singhdwar police station in the name of YouTuber Animesh Chakraborty in the case of Shrimandi’s drone video viral.

On the basis of the investigation report, the police registered a case and arrested him on January 19, 2023. Puri Police arrested Youtuber Animesh Chakraborty from the Barrackpore area in Kolkata on charges of flying a drone over the no-flying zone in the Jagannath Temple in Puri.

On its Twitter handle, Puri Police had informed that a special team led by DSP City KK Hariprasad arrested Chakraborty five days after keeping a close eye on him as he was evading arrest since he flew a drone over the no-flying zone of the 12th Century Shrine.

It is to be noted here that the Puri City police started an investigation after a video purportedly showing the ‘Nilachakra’ and the aerial view of the 12th-century temple went viral.

The video contained the Unified Animesh and Unified Movie watermarks. This video was taken from the top of the main temple, the temple is so closely visible that the upper part of the temple and the inner part of the temple are fully visible. The important thing is that there is no flying zone above and around the shrine. No helicopters or drones can fly over it.

However, who took these videos and photos and with whose permission raised questions. After investigation it was found that Animesh has been producing short films and web series under the banner Unified Movies.

It is worth mentioning that, he applied for anticipatory bail in the High Court to avoid arrest in this case, but the High Court rejected the anticipatory bail. Later, Animesh was arrested by the Puri police. The High Court granted conditional bail after hearing the regular bail application today.