Aurangabad, Oct 17:
Thieves stole three donation boxes from the Shri Balaji temple at Karnapura in the wee hours on Sunday. Fortunately, the temple administration had removed the donation collected in these boxes for eight days of Navratri. Hence, the thieves got the donation of only one day. Thus, around Rs 4 lakh collected in eight days were saved, while the thieves got only the donation of around Rs 12,000.
Shri Balaji temple was opened for devotees on October 7 for Navratri festival. The devotees throng the temple every day between 6 am and 9.30 pm. The temple was closed as usual on Saturday.
The trustee of the temple, Rajendra Vitthal Pujari, heard a noise in the temple at around 2 am on Sunday. He woke up the other members of the house, including Anil, Akshay, Divakar and Ankit. When they went to the temple, they found that two donation boxes were stolen while one box was broken and the donation from it was missing. The thieves also stole a donation box from the Hanuman temple near Balaji temple. Pujari immediately informed the control room about the theft. The Begumpura PI Prashant Poddar and his team while patrolling rushed to the spot and inspected.
In the morning, DCP Ujwalla Vankar, ACP Vivek Saraf, Cantonment PI Sharad Ingle, API Manisha Hiwarale, PSI Sachin Wayal, Pandurang Dake, Ganesh Kedar and others went to the spot in morning and took the CCTV footage in custody.
Based on a complaint lodged by Pujari, a case has been registered at the Cantonment police station while PSI Dake is further investigating the case.