Thane, Aug 23 (PTI) A man offered prayers at a temple before stealing Rs 15,000 from the donation box in Maharashtra's Thane city on Wednesday morning, the police said.

CCTV cameras have captured the man visiting the Hanuman temple at Kopri near the railway station around 8.30 am, the police said.

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He prayed before the deity and then cleaned out the donation box, which had nearly Rs 15,000 cash, an official said citing the footage that the police scanned later.

The crime came to light after a woman devotee found the “hundi” broken and raised an alarm, said Deepak Shelar, a journalist, who was at the temple at the time. However, the man managed to escape.

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The Kopri police have registered a case and a probe is underway, the official added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)