Pune: Thieves first stole the silver crown weighing 1.3kg for goddess Tuljabhavani from a temple in Talegaon Dabhade on May 23.An unidentified man, posing as a devotee, went near the idol and, under the pretext of performing a puja, picked up the crown and fled after diverting the priest’s attention. The Talegaon Dabhade police combed through 80 CCTV footage recordings and arrested Ravi Soni (34) and Ramesh Soni (36) from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh and recovered the crown.The crown was reinstalled on Friday in the presence of deputy commissioner of police Shweta Khedkar of Pimpri Chinchwad police and senior police inspector Kanhaiya Thorat of the Talegaon Dabhade police. It was gone again on Saturday morning.This time, unidentified men broke open the door of the temple’s sanctum and made off with the crown. A fresh case has been registered with the Talegaon Dabhade police. “We are working on some clues. We will soon arrest the suspects involved in the theft,” DCP Khedkar told TOI. “We have specific inputs and will have a breakthrough within a day or two,” an officer from the Talegaon Dabhade police added.Meanwhile, the same night, cash was stolen from the donation box inside Kadjai Mata temple in Maval taluka. A case was registered with the Talegaon MIDC police.
