Pashupatinath Temple shooting
The Pashupatinath Temple shooting was a mass shooting that occurred at the Pashupatinath Temple and its surrounding area in Mandsaur, India on 23 July 1983. Ramesh Sharma, a 28-year-old police constable killed 14 people and wounded nine others, before he was shot and killed by…
Mandsaur’s Pashupatinath Temple is better known for the 23 July 1983 shooting than for any ancient plasterwork, and that fact colours any visit. The temple itself, a modest sandstone shrine on the banks of the Parwati, is a quiet Hindu precinct that normally draws locals for early‑morning aarti at 6:30 am; the architecture is unremarkable, but the surrounding market lane—Rani Chowk—offers a surprisingly authentic taste of Malwa with bhutte ka kees and jalebi from stalls that have survived the atrocity’s memory. If you’re intent on confronting history, the police memorial on the north side of the main gate—still fenced, with a rust‑stained plaque—provides a stark contrast to the devotional ambience, and a short walk to the adjacent railway bridge reveals the line of sight from where constable Ramesh Sharma opened fire, a sobering reminder of how quickly communal calm can shatter. Stay at the modest Heritage Guest House on Gopalgarh Road; it’s within walking distance and shields you from the tourist‑laden hotels that over‑promise a “peaceful pilgrimage”. Two days is honest: one for the temple and market, another for the nearby Jaswanth Sagar lake, where the heat of May‑June becomes intolerable—plan for October to February, when the river is full and the town’s pulse slows enough to reflect, rather than recoil, from its darker past.
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