In the dead of the night, an unidentified man climbed over the wall of a temple in Madhya Pradesh's Shivpuri, stole the donation box and ran away.
The priest, Sonu Sharma, locked the temple on Tuesday night, but woke up to a shock the next morning when the temple cleaner, Kailash Yogi, alerted him that the donation box was missing.
Sharma said the donation box had last been opened on January 31 and contained currency in denominations of Rs 10, 20, 50 and 100, apart from coins. It is estimated that the box carried thousands of rupees at the time it was stolen.
CCTV footage showed the thief scaling the temple wall around 2.45 am, walking into the sanctum sanctorum and coming out with the donation box, before running away.
A police case was filed and a manhunt is on find the accused.
