Servitor accused of stealing devotee's wallet inside Puri Srimandir

Puri: In what could become a major cause of embarrassment for Puri Srimandir's administration, a servitor has been detained by the Singhadwar police on the charges of stealing a wallet of a devotee.

According to sources, the incident took place near Nata Mandap on Saturday when a devotee from Cuttack, Swapnajeet Nayak, found his wallet missing and lodged a complaint.

After conducting preliminary investigation, police recovered the missing wallet of the complainant from a servitor Shyam Sundar Pratihari.

Pratihari was detained yesterday and is now being interrogated in connection with the incident.

Singhadwar police station in-charge Gokulranjan Das said," We recovered the wallet from Shyam Sundar Pratihari who is a servitor at Puri temple. He has been detained basing on the complaint filed by the devotee."

Meanwhile, Singhadwar police is conducting further investigation in the case and CCTV footage will also be examined.