TN temple refuses to return iPhone accidently dropped into temple box
text_fields
Chennai: The authorities of a temple in Tamil Nadu will not return the iPhone that a man accidently dropped into the temple’s offering box because it now ‘goes into God's account’.
The officials of the Sri Kandaswamy temple in Chengalpattu district's Thiruporur declines the request of Dinesh whose phone had fallen into the hundial, according to NDTV.
The Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department said that the phone has become a temple property.
Also, as per the Installation, Safeguarding and Accounting of Hundial Rules, 1975 offering to the hundial would not be returned to the owner in any case, according to news agency PTI.
As the phone is deemed to be an offering, the most the officials can do is to allow the iPhone owner to retrieve the data.
Meanwhile, PK Sekar Babu, the Minister of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department said that anything deposited into the offering box ‘goes into God's account’.
‘As per the practices and tradition at the temples, any offering made into the hundial directly goes into the account of the deity of that temple. Rules do not permit the administration to return the offerings back to the devotees,’ Babu was quoted as saying.
The minister however added that he would discuss with the officials the possibility of compensating the devotee.
In another incident in 2023, a devotee, S Sangeetha from Alappuzha in Kerala accidently dropped her 1.75 sovereign gold chain into the offering box of the Sri Dhandayuthapani Swamy temple in Palani when she removed a tulasi garland from to neck to do an offering.
The chairman of the temple board of trustees bought her a new gold chain of the same value after understanding her financial situation.