Dehradun, India: The wedding planners hired by South Africa’s scandal-plagued Gupta family have been fined for open defecation and littering following the opulent celebrations at a scenic Himalayan resort, an official said on Monday.
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The wealthy Indian migrant family, who left South Africa in 2017, is being investigated over a web of murky deals involving government officials and state-owned entities during former president Jacob Zuma’s nine-year reign.
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The three brothers had hired wedding planning firm E-Factors to organise their sons’ lavish nuptials last month at Auli, a pristine ski resort ringed by the Nanda Devi mountain range in northern Uttarakhand state.
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The weddings drew widespread attention in India after photos showed the picturesque venue littered with rotting flowers, food and other garbage.
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S.P. Nautiyal, a local civic official, said the planners have been fined 250,000 rupees ($3,621; Dh13,296) for leaving behind the mess. Some of the workers hired by the company had even defecated in the open, he said.
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“For defecating in the open we have imposed a fine of 100,000 rupees and another 150,000 rupees penalty has been levied for scattering garbage,” Nautiyal said.
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The hotel where the weddings took place has also been fined 25,000 rupees ($362) for “keeping sewage lines open”.
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Local media reports said civic workers had so far collected some 30 tonnes of garbage, with trucks being sent daily to collect the waste since June 22.
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The Times of India on Monday quoted a local official as saying that temporary toilets had been set up for hundreds of guests but no such facilities were built to accommodate the workers.
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“We assume that they… defecated in the open”, it quoted an unnamed official as saying.