In the wee hours of Monday, February 6, unknown miscreants broke into a Hanuman temple in Narapat Pur village, Chairaigaon Block, Varanasi district, Uttar Pradesh, and vandalised the Lord Hanuman idol. A Shivling, Trishul, and a Nandi idol were also found to be uprooted and desecrated. The donation box was also broken and looted.
आज हमारे गाँव नरपतपुर चौबेपुर वाराणसी के शिव मंदिर पर किसी अराजक तत्वों द्वारा सभी मूर्तियों को तोड़ दिया गया है pic.twitter.com/1PjUSQbfuH
— Ajeet Singh yadav (@AjeetSYS) February 6, 2023
The incident came to the fore when devotees reached the temple and saw the idols kept in the sanctum sanctorum desecrated. The locals informed the local police who immediately reached the spot and started a probe into the matter. The CCTV footage was collected based on which the police said the miscreants would be identified and nabbed.
The police pacified the angry locals who gathered in the temple and protested against the attack on their temple. The police assured that the idols would be restored in the same place in the temple and the miscreants would be apprehended and punished.
In fact, the Varanasi police also took to Twitter to inform that a case under relevant sections of the IPC has been registered in the case at the Choubepur police station and the police are taking proactive steps to resolve that case and nab the accused at the earliest.
उपरोक्त प्रकरण में थाना चौबेपुर (9454404380) में अभियोग पंजीकृत कर अग्रिम कार्यवाही की जा रही है।
— DCP Varuna Zone Vns (@DcpVns) February 6, 2023
As per reports, the incident occurred at around 3 am on Monday, February 6. The miscreants broke the Hanuman idol kept in the temple’s sanctum sanctorum. The Shivling was missing. The Nandi statue and the Trishul were uprooted, vandalised and strewn around the floor.
In the morning, when a local villager named Sitaram Yadav arrived at the temple to pay his obeisance, he was horrified to see the temple vandalised. In no time several other devotees gathered at the temple. Angered by the vandalism at the place of worship, the locals protested and demanded strict action against the unknown accused.
On receiving the information, Chaubepur police station in-charge Rajesh Singh, along with the heavy police force, reached the spot. The police assured the devotees that the miscreants would be identified through the CCTV footage.
“During the investigation, it was also found that the miscreants took away the money from the donation box. “The miscreants will be identified based on CCTV footage. The idols will be installed in the temple with immediate effect. Search is on to arrest the miscreants,” said Chaubepur police station in-charge Rajesh Singh.
Prior to this, unknown miscreants robbed the Dih Baba temple in the Shivpur police station jurisdiction, which is apparently very close to the Chairaigaon Block where the aforementioned incident occurred. According to reports, miscreants stole around ten lakh rupees by breaking ten donation boxes placed at the temple. The thieves had also uprooted the DVR connected to the temple’s CCTV on their way out.
Last year, local Hindu worshippers caught a youth named Yakub red-handed vandalizing an idol of a deity placed in a Shiv temple in the Titawi village in Baghara Block in Muzaffarnagar District of Uttar Pradesh. Angry locals caught hold of Yakub, who was trying to flee after vandalizing the idol and handed him over to the police.
