Thieves lock sebayet in his room and steal ornaments and shradhha food from temple in Nabinagar

Thieves locked the sebayet of a temple in his room in Nabinagar, Brahmanbaria, and stole gold and silver ornaments, money from the donation box and food materials kept for a shradhha ceremony.

The incident took place late on Thursday night at the Sri Sri Bhabatarini Kalimata temple at Paschimpara in the upazila town. A case was filed with the police station on Friday over the incident.

According to local people, police and temple sources, Samir Ghosh, a resident of Paschimpara, died on 30 October. His family arranged a midday meal for more than three hundred guests at the temple premises on Friday for his shradhha ceremony. Food and other materials worth more than one lakh taka were bought and kept inside the temple on Thursday night for that purpose.

Late on Thursday night, the thieves broke the temple's CCTV camera with a bamboo stick. They then broke the locks of the gate and the main temple and entered. At that time, sebayet Hiralal Barman was locked inside his room.

The thieves took a gold nose ring and tikli from the Kali idol, a silver anklet, 20,000 to 30,000 taka by breaking the donation box, and the food materials for the shradhha ceremony.

Temple sebayet Hiralal Barman said he lives in the room beside the temple. The gang first locked him inside that room at night. They then destroyed the temple's CCTV camera, broke the lock of the main temple and stole the gold and silver ornaments from the idol and all the materials for Friday's shradhha midday meal.

Samir Ghosh's younger brother Arup Kumar Ghosh said groceries worth more than one lakh taka were bought on Thursday night and kept inside the temple for his elder brother's shradhha and Friday's meal. But the thieves broke the temple lock and took the materials along with the gold and silver ornaments from the idol. He said he could not even imagine such a thing would happen. The materials for the shradhha had to be bought again in the morning, and the midday meal was completed at the temple premises.

Temple general secretary Jayanta Kapali said the thieves carried out the theft after closing the sebayet's room from outside. The sebayet lodged a complaint with the police station at around 11am on Friday.

Nabinagar police station officer-in-charge (OC) Morshed Alam Chowdhury said police visited the spot as soon as they received the news. Police are examining the matter with importance, and an operation to recover the stolen materials is continuing.