Temple priest arrested

Guntur: Koll parapolice have arrested a temple priest who replaced the original gold ornaments of the deity with fake jewellery and fled with the valuables. Within a week of receiving the complaint, policesuccessfully apprehended the accused and recovered all the stolen jewellery on Tuesday. The incident took place at Sri Kasi Annapurna Sametha Visweshwara Swamy Temple in Hanumanpalem village.

According to Tenali SDPO Janardhan Rao, temple priest Pannala Durga Jayaram @ Jayaram Sharma had been performing duties at the temple for nearly 2.5 years. Motivated by greed and a luxurious lifestyle, he systematically removed the deity’s original ornaments weighing about 190 grams and valued at around Rs 20 lakh over several months, replacing them with imitation jewellery to avoid suspicion. Circle Inspector Umesh said that the accused was traced using technical surveillance. The jewellery was fully recovered, and the accused has been remanded to judicial custody.