Priest arrested for mortgaging temple ornaments
The main priest Venkata Ramana Dikhitulu of the Sri Kodanda Rama Swamy temple has been in the custody of TTD vigilance officers for interrogation regarding the missing ornaments from the temple that he mortgaged for nine lakh rupees
THE MAIN priest of the Sri Kodanda Rama Swamy temple, Venkata Ramana Dikhitulu, which is attached to Tirumala Tirupati Devastanam (Tirumala-Tirupati) cheated Lord Venkateswara by mortgaging two ornaments for Nine Lakh of rupees to a private money lender in Tirupati. This was found when TTD and its annexure temples were scrutinising the gold ornaments. This has come as a shocking news for the devotees of Lord Venkataeswara around the world. A devotee of Nellore district filed a PIL in the state high court regarding the correct statistics of TTD temples' ornaments donated by devotees and in reply, the Court has ordered and appointed a committee under the supervision of a retired high court judge.
In view of the court judgment, the committee started the work of verifying the ornaments last week. After completing the main temple Lord Venkateswara on Friday, the committee started the checking of Sri Kdanda Rama Swamy temple where the supervisors found that two ornaments weighing about one kilo were missing.
Then they enquired the priests and suspected the hand of main Priest Venkata Ramana Dikshitulu. Later, he voluntarily accepted that he mortgaged both the ornaments for his family problems for nine Lakhs rupees. He told the media persons that because of poverty and no assistance from anybody, he had to do that. He also told the media persons that he had no option to overcome his personal problems except that and the Lord Kodanda Rama Swamy had shown the way.
The culprit has been in the custody of TTD vigilance officers for interrogation and later he will be handed over to local Police.
Login
 Login through Social ID
|
