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Ludhiana: 2 masked miscreants steal 40 kg silver, from temple, damage idols
CCTV cameras captured accused scaling temple’s back wall around 1.30 am, escaping from the front gate nearly an hour later
Two masked burglars allegedly broke into the Pracheen Sheetla Mata Temple in Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar’s I-Block, one of the posh localities in the city, early on Tuesday morning vandalised the idols, officials said.
They added that the accused stole 40 kg silver and some gold ornaments worth ₹40 lakh from the temple.
The theft came to light when the temple priest arrived in the morning and found the main gate unlocked and the temple ransacked. The priest, who lives nearby, locks the temple every night before going home. The footage from closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras revealed two masked individuals scaling the temple’s back gate while carrying a rod and executing the theft.
According to Sushma Giridhar, a member of the temple management committee, the burglars entered the temple around 1.30 am and spent nearly an hour inside. They stole silver ornaments from all idols, including a 19 kg silver ‘chhatra’, a silver cover from the shivling, and a gold nath (nosepin). While removing the silver covering from the shivling, the burglars vandalised it, he said, and added that the accused escaped on a bike through the main gate after breaking its lock.
The temple management informed Sarabha Nagar police, who arrived at the scene and took possession of the CCTV footage.
Sarabha Nagar station-house officer (SHO) inspector Neeraj Chaudhary said a case was registered against unidentified accused based on statements from the temple management. Police are reviewing footage from CCTV cameras installed nearby to trace the culprits.
This is not the first such incident in the city in the past few months.
On August 14, 2024, a gang of burglars barged into the Shivpuri temple in Khanna around 3 am and fled around 40 minutes later with 3.6 kg silver. The police solved the case with the arrest of four accused.
