Golden crown worth Rs 1.2L stolen from Guruwar Peth temple

PUNE: The Rs 1.20-lakh golden crown of the Ghantakarn Mahavir idol at Godi Parshavanath temple in Guruwar Peth was stolen by an unidentified person around 7.45pm on Wednesday. Deputy commissioner of police (zone-I) Dnyaneshwar Phadtare said, “Investigations have been launched on the basis of the CCTV footage.”
One of the trustees of the temple, Dhirubhai Shah, said the theft came to light around 8.30pm on Wednesday when the temple priest Sheetal Rajput went inside the sanctum sanctorum to prepare for an ‘Aarti’.Rajput immediately informed chairman of the trust Chandulal Shah. “The CCTV footage clearly shows the man skillfully removing the crown,” Dhirubhai Shah said.
The complaint was lodged by the temple’s caretaker, Birendra Hiralal Shah (50) of Sadashiv Peth, with the Khadak police station. According to Dhirubhai, the man entered the temple around 7.30 pm. First, he spoke to a bookseller who sits on the temple’s premises. “We asked the bookseller about the suspect. He said the suspect spoke to him in Hindi and asked him whether he was an employee of the trust,” Shah said.
Shah said, the CCTV footage shows the suspect waiting inside the sanctum sanctorum before a devotee who was offering his prayer could leave. “The ‘Ghantakarn Mahavir’ idol is placed inside a transparent acrylic box, which has a small window-like opening at the bottom through which devotees touch the idol’s feet. The suspect then took out an iron rod with the help of which he removed the gold crown. When the crown fell down, he took it out from the opening at the bottom and walked out of the temple, leaving the rod behind, without being noticed by anyone,” he said.
Shah said, “We have 32 CCTVs installed on the premises of the temple and have four security guards posted at the temple, but they did not suspect him as he was well dressed.” Phadtare, who visited the temple, said the police have sent out a team to trace the suspect.