By SNV Sudhir
Visakhapatanam, April 15, 2013: A priest at famous Sree Kurmanatha temple in Srikakulam was injured in an attack by irate devotees here on Monday morning. Enraged with the priest’s act of duplicating the idol of the presiding deity — Lord Kurmanatha — with wax, the locals staged a protest at the temple.
With no response from the temple authorities the agitated locals barged into the temple and attacked the priest Chamarla Murali Krishna, who received blows on his face leaving him bleeding from the nose and severe injury to his left eye.
The temple is dedicated to Lord Kurmanatha, the second avatar of Lord Vishnu (Tortoise). This is the only temple in the entire country where Lord Vishnu is seen in a ‘Kurmavatara’.
Devotees felt that the priest was trying to create a duplicate idol hurting their sentiments and sanctity of the temple. They also alleged that the priest tried to sell the original idol to some Banglore based smuggler and install a duplicate one at the sanctum sanctorum and in the process he made a wax copy.
“He had done this even without informing the temple executive officer. We want to know the intentions and motive behind doing so in a secret manner,” asked K. Venkat Rao. The incident took place on Friday and only came to light on Monday morning.
Police had to swing into action after some agitated devotees pelted stones at the priest. “Banglore based one Ranga Rao wanted to gift silver armour to the idol and asked me a wax copy to manufacture and I did it. There are no any ill intentions behind it,” said the priest Murali Krishna.
The priest was immediately suspended by the temple executive officer, Prasad Patnaik who also lodged a complaint at the local police station. “There is a procedure to do such things. It is against agamasastra. He should have taken permission from the temple authorities. It’s an condemnable act,” said Sarada Peetham seer Swamy Swaroopanandendra Saraswathy.
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