NEW DELHI — Rights activists lashed out at local officials who allowed hundreds of infants to be dropped from the roof of a mosque in the belief that the fall — which ends when the babies are caught in a bedsheet — would ensure good health and prosperity for their families.
The infants, mostly younger than 2, were dangled Thursday from the roof of the Baba Umer Durga shrine near Sholapur, about 280 miles south of Mumbai, before being dropped about 50 feet onto a bedsheet held aloft by parents and other believers.
TV channels showed the babies screaming as they were shaken in the air before being dropped. Child-rights activists expressed outrage. Local officials told television news stations Friday that there had been no reports of injuries.
