- By Surarika Das
- Sun, 26 Jul 2026 03:43 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
- Eight officials suspended at Coimbatore's Koniamman Temple.
- Four staff arrested for direct hundi fund theft.
- Incident follows similar cases at Ayodhya and Badrinath
Following recent cases at Ayodhya's Ram Temple and Uttarakhand' Badrinath Dham, Coimbatore's Arulmigu Koniamman Temple has come under scrutiny over allegations of misappropriation. Eight officials and staff members of a temple in Tamil Nadu were suspended on Sunday in connection with the misappropriation of hundi funds. Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Regional Joint Commissioner Ramesh Kumar ordered the suspension of the officials.
Four of them have been accused of direct theft, while other supervisory officials have been penalised for severe administrative negligence.
4 Arrested After Theft
The allegations of mishandling of hundi funds first came to light after the temple's scheduled counting process on July 15. Irregularities prompted HR&CE's Kumar to launch a probe into the incident and identify those responsible for mishandling of funds. The four arrested officials are identified as ticket collector A Balasubramaniyan (52), office assistant V Saravanan (34), cleaning staff P Pradeep Kumar (31), and temple priest S Krishnaraj (56).
Police said that the four accused initially segregated an uncounted hundi from the main counting area, moved these funds to the backside of the temple premises on a trolley. Following this, they took approximately Rs 31,000 to divide amongst themselves, the PTI report said.
After their arrest on Saturday, Kumar enacted their suspensions the following day over theft accusations.
Ram Mandir Donation Theft
This comes days after the Ram Mandir donation theft case in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya. The case involves the alleged embezzlement of cash offerings, the arrest of eight accused staff members, and the Supreme Court-directed reconstitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by senior IPS officers.
A three-member probe panel, headed by divisional commissioner Vijay Vishwas Pant, has completed its field inquiry and recorded statements of over 70 workers linked to the temple's donation management system. Moving beyond evidence collection, the probe is now looking into administrative compromises that permitted repeated cash pilferage in the temple. All eight accused of siphoning donations during the counting process are under arrest.
Badrinath Donation Theft
In a similar case, an SIT unit of Uttarakhand’s Chamoli police has sought the last three years' donation records from the Badrinath Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC) in connection to an alleged theft of funds from the Badrinath Dham in Uttarakhand. Two arrests have been made in the case so far.