Ernakulam temple priest swaps deity’s gold with fakes, old fraud victim alerts committee

Kochi: What began as a routine temporary appointment of a priest to ensure uninterrupted rituals at a local temple has spiralled into a shocking case of alleged theft, sacrilege, and betrayal at a temple in Ernakulam's Piravom.

The arrest of 50-year-old KE Unnikrishnan Namboodiri, a native of Amabalapuzha, who had been serving as the temporary Melshanthi (chief priest) at the Onakkoor Devi Temple in Piravom, has stunned devotees and temple authorities alike. According to the police, the priest allegedly stole sacred gold ornaments adorning the deities and replaced them with meticulously crafted copper and imitation replicas.

The deception came to light only after a phone call from a man who claimed he, too, had once been cheated by the priest. Temple authorities now believe that the unexpected warning was nothing short of divine intervention.

According to temple officials, the chain of events began on February 22, just days before the temple’s annual eight-day festival. The permanently appointed priest met with an accident, forcing the management committee to urgently find a replacement. Namboodiri was brought in temporarily from February 24 to conduct rituals and oversee temple affairs.

When the original priest later requested two additional months to recover, the committee extended Namboodiri’s tenure, unknowingly placing the temple’s sanctum and valuables under the control of a man who would soon face serious allegations.

“A chief priest’s routine is to close the temple after evening prayers and leave,” said CB Rajeevan, temple treasurer and local ward member. “Every time a new priest takes over, no one checks the gold ornaments. It was a lapse on our part,” he added.

Temple authorities said the missing ornaments were not merely valuables, but objects of immense spiritual importance for devotees. The stolen items allegedly included two 4-gram gold lockets adorning the Krishna idol, gifted by a devotee in 2018 as a ritual offering, and a separate 12-gram gold locket belonging to the Devi idol, totalling around 20 grams of gold.

According to Rajeevan, the larger locket had a particularly emotional and ritual significance. Around 2019, the temple had conducted a Devaprasnam, an astrological ritual intended to interpret the deity’s wishes. The findings reportedly suggested that the presiding deity, Balabhadrakali, envisioned as a child goddess, desired sacred gold ornaments around her neck.

To fulfil what devotees considered a divine directive, the committee collected gold offerings made by devotees over several years, melted them into a single block and commissioned a custom-made sacred locket for the deity. Temple authorities allege that this revered ornament later became one of the key targets of the theft.

A phone call that exposed the alleged theft
The alleged fraud began unravelling last week, on May 13, when Rajeevan received an unexpected phone call from a man, a garland maker based in Ernakulam and originally from Ooramana.

The man reportedly told temple authorities that he had earlier dealt with Namboodiri and accused him of cheating him financially. He further alleged that when he demanded his money back, the priest and his son threatened him. While tracking Namboodiri’s movements, the man found that he was serving at the Onakkoor temple and immediately contacted Rajeevan.

The man also warned that valuables had allegedly gone missing at several temples where Namboodiri had earlier worked and claimed the priest rarely remained at any temple for more than two months.

Alarmed by the allegations, Rajeevan informed Temple Committee President MK Manmadhan Nair, following which the executive committee quietly decided to inspect the temple ornaments the next morning.

On the morning of May 14, committee members summoned Namboodiri to the temple office and asked him to produce the ornaments used on the deities. Officials said the priest appeared visibly nervous before handing over the ornaments and abruptly leaving the premises.

“Right when I saw the large locket, I knew it wasn't ours. I had personally sat with the goldsmith to get the original made. The duplicate he handed us looked entirely different,” Rajeevan said.

The ornaments were immediately taken to a goldsmith in nearby Pampakuda, who confirmed that the lockets were not genuine gold but made of copper and imitation jewellery.

Following a formal complaint lodged by Manmadhan Nair, Piravom police registered an FIR and took Namboodiri into custody. Police sources said the accused later confessed to the crime during interrogation.

They have since pieced together what they describe as a calculated sequence of theft and liquidation. According to police, on March 30, barely a month after taking charge at the temple, Namboodiri allegedly pledged the 12-gram sacred locket at a private financial institution in Kothamangalam and obtained a loan of ₹1 lakh, later availing an additional ₹20,000.

The police said that by April 24, unable to redeem the pledged ornament, he allegedly arranged for its outright sale through the finance institution’s coordinator to a nearby jewellery shop in Kothamangalam.

During a subsequent raid led by Piravom SHO, the jewellery shop owner reportedly admitted that the sacred locket had already been melted down. The police recovered the melted gold from him. The remaining missing gold ornaments are suspected to have been sold in Aluva.

Piravom police officials said they would soon seek the accused's custody for detailed interrogation. “Further questioning is necessary to trace the remaining stolen gold and identify the source from where the imitation ornaments used as replacements were procured,” said police sources.