KOCHI: The police are having a tough time tracking down a thief who hit a temple in the city five times between January 2019 and April 2021. In all five instances, the latest being on Thursday, the thief broke the lock of the offering box of Kuzhikattu Shree Bhagavathy temple near NGO quarters, Kakkanad, and took away the money.
In the latest incident, the priest who came to the temple saw the broken lock of the hundi and alerted temple authorities. “This is the fifth such incident. Though we alerted the police after each theft, it is still going on,” said temple secretary G Ajay Kumar.
He said they had removed all the Vishu offerings by devotees from the hundi a week ago and there was not much money inside. “After the second theft, the temple committee decided to remove the money every two weeks. But our real concern is the way the police are handling the matter. They are taking it very lightly,” he said.
Though the temple authorities provided the visuals of the thief when he committed the crime on January 10, the police could not nab him. The Thrikkakara police said a probe has been launched. “We suspect the thefts have been committed by the same person, but we lack any solid evidence to back this theory,” said a police official.