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Anything that falls into the temple offering box belongs to God; temple authorities refuse to return an iPhone that fell into the offering box.
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Renjini RamachandranThe argument that anything that falls into the temple offering box belongs to God. Temple authorities in Tamil Nadu refused to return an iPhone that accidentally fell into the temple offering box. The phone belongs to Dinesh, a resident of Vinayagapuram. Last month, Dinesh and his family visited the Arulmigu Kandhaswami Temple in Thiruporur near Chennai. After the pooja, Dinesh went to place money in the offering box. While taking out cash from his shirt pocket, the iPhone fell into the offering box. Dinesh then approached the temple authorities. However, the response he received was that anything placed in the offering box becomes the property of the deity.
Subsequently, Dinesh filed a complaint with the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments authorities. Their intervention led to a directive to open the offering box. On Friday, the temple authorities opened the offering box. Hoping to retrieve the phone, Dinesh also arrived. However, the response from the temple authorities was that the phone would not be returned, but the SIM card and essential data from the phone could be taken. However, Dinesh's stance is that this is not acceptable.