Terry Firma

A Hindu priest in India was beaten bloody by angry devotees who accused him of trying to recreate a religious statue in wax. The crowd presumed he wanted to sell the original.

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. … Chamarla Murali Krishna received blows on his face, leaving him bleeding from the nose, and severe injury to his left eye. [It appears to be his right eye unless the image was flipped —TF]

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 Bangalore-based smuggler and install a duplicate one at the sanctum sanctorum. … Police had to swing into action after some agitated devotees pelted stones at the priest.

The accosted man claims it was a misunderstanding, explaining that a Hindu worshiper “wanted to gift silver armor to the idol and asked me to manufacture a wax copy and I did it. There are not any ill intentions behind it.”

[image via Deccan Chronicle]