Cops nab eight in connection of theft in Simhachalam temple

Visakhapatnam: The Vizag city police on Wednesday arrested eight people in connection of over 500 kgs of brass offerings theft from Simhachalam temple in the city.

Over about 500 kg of brass items offered to the presiding deity at Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple in Simhachalam are missing. The missing items are worth around Rs 1.2 lakh.

The police said that they have received a complaint from Assistant Executive Officer, Simhachalam Temple, P Rama Rao citing that one bidder has purchased 665 kgs of brass items in an auction. The devotees offer brass bracelets and brass replicas of bells and oxen in the hundi and the brass items were recently auction. But, the bidder (contractor) left them in 41 bags at the Kalyanamandapam in the temple premises to take them later.

However, it was found that on October 9, that some unknown person stole 34 bags of brass items (550 kgs) worth Rs1.2 lakh. Based on the complaint, DCP (Crimes) V Suresh Babu formed special teams and the investigation has revealed that four persons committed the theft while four others were receivers of the stolen brass items.

The arrested have been identified as K Suresh, K Mahesh, S Srinivas, and S Sateesh, all the four have stolen the brass offerings while the receivers were P Appa Rao, V Ramu, M Rajasekhar Reddy and A Venkata Kumar Reddy. The police have recovered the stolen property from them.