The gold-plating on the dome of the popular Ekvira temple, located near Karla in Lonavala, has been stolen by two unidentified people on Tuesday morning. The theft came to light on Tuesday after which the temple trustees filed a police complaint with the Lonavala rural police. The ornamentation was worth Rs 2 lakh and was donated by a devotee in 2015. According to the police, the CCTV footage shows two men climbing the top of the temple from the rear at around 3 am and removed the dome. It is also said that the CCTV cameras are not fully functional and also the security personnels were on strike when the theft took place.
The Ekvira goddess is the family deity (kuldevat) of the Thackeray family and Shiv Sena chief Udhav Thackeray and family visits the temple once in a year. In 2014, after the assembly election, Uddhav Thackeray along with wife Rashmi and son Aditya visited the temple with Shiv Sena’s 63 newly elected MLAs.
As a mark of protest against the dome theft, the shops near the temple were shut on Tuesday. This is not the first time the temple was targeted by thieves. In 2011, a gang of dacoits tried to rob the temple but the attempt was foiled by a policeman who opened a fire at the gang. In 2016, a gang of robbers stole ornaments and cash from the donation box. Till date, the police are not successful in cracking the case.
