Burglars target temple in city, decamp with cash, valuables

LUCKNOW: Burglars targeted the Kalyani Kali Badi Mandir at Khurramnagar under Indira Nagar police station area in the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, and decamped with cash and valuables worth several lakhs of rupees, said police officials.

On Sunday, the president of the temple trust, Anoop Mukherjee, lodged an FIR in Indira Nagar police station against the unidentified burglars under the Indian Penal Code sections 380 for theft and 457 for criminal trespassing the house to commit theft.

Sub-inspector of Indira Nagar police station, Vinod Yadav said the burglars entered the temple premises after scaling the boundary wall and broke into the main worship room.

“Burglars are suspected to be at least two in number and they took away cash around ₹40,000 present in the donation box and jewellery from the idol of Goddess Kali,” he said.

However, the temple trust authorities have not confirmed the actual value of the stolen jewellery that supposed to be in several lakhs, Yadav said.

The sub-inspector said that the burglars’ modus-operandi suggested that they were well aware about the temple premises— either they were frequent visitors to the temple or properly did recce before committing the theft.

“Police are trying to retrieve footages of CCTV cameras installed on approach routes to the temple to get clue about the burglars’ movement. Further probe is on into the matter,” he said.

Earlier also, a theft case was reported at Buddheshwar Mahadev temple under Para police station limits on intervening night of July 10 and 11. Thieves had taken away cash worth several thousands from six donation boxes of the temple. Police so far have failed to crack the case and trace burglars involved in the theft.

On 26, 2017, the burglars had similarly broke into Radha Krishna temple in Gayatrinagar on Sitapur road in Madiaon.

In the incident, the burglars had decamped with cash and valuables worth several thousands.