Mumbai: Two TV journalists as well as the deputy mayor of Mumbai were asked by organisers of a religious and cultural function to move behind from the first row to the fourth as no female was allowed to sit 30 metres from where the monks were seated.

The incident occurred at a function held by the Jain community in an auditorium in the premises of Swaminarayan Temple at Dadar on Thursday where Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was being honoured for his government’s decision to ban consumption of beef.

The women told Gulf News how shocked and insulted they felt when they were asked to move from the first row especially because it was clearly shown that the first three rows were reserved for the press. “They should have mentioned in the invite that only male journalists should attend the function,” said an indignant journalist from a Marathi TV channel.

She remarked how she felt both angry and humiliated as she had gone there to attend the function as a media professional and not as a “devotee or a member of the sect.” Though she refused to move behind, the organisers repeatedly told her that this was their “culture” and women could not sit within 30 metres from where monks were sitting.

And to make her feel better, the organisers told her that “even their mothers and sisters” could not sit in the first three rows. The journalist retorted that “this is also an insult to their women folk. It was a clear discrimination against women,” she said. Even BJP MLA Ashish Shelar could not convince the organisers to let the women sit in the first three rows.

The journalist walked out of the function and waited outside to get a quote from Fadnavis. “The CM, too, remarked in his speech that this was unfortunate and should not happen again.”

Another TV journalist from Jai Maharashtra, a Marathi TV channel, too, was asked to move back to the fourth row and said she felt humiliated. “How could this happen in this age?” she wondered.

Mumbai’s deputy mayor, Alka Kerkar, was not as resentful as the young journalists and said, “They have certain religious traditions regarding their ‘swamis’ — that women should be 30 metres away from them. I did not think it as an insult but in today’s times, this is not permissible. It was totally wrong. We have progressed so much. We have registered our objections that it should not repeat.”