A video is being shared on social media claiming it is visuals of priests stealing from the donation boxes in a temple. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Video of priests stealing money from donation boxes in a temple.
Fact: The video shows the priests of Kerala’s Guruvayurappan temple collecting money from donation boxes as part of their regular customs. An all-time record of Rs. 6.86 crores worth of treasure was collected from the Bhadaram or donation boxes of Guruvayurappan temple this September 2022. The Guruvayoor Devaswom Managing Committee administers the donation money received by the Guruvayurappan temple. The priests of the temple have no authority over this donation money. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On reverse image search of the screenshots of the video, a video with similar visuals was found in an article published by ‘Kalayanthanikazhchakal’ news website on 29 September 2022. This news website reported it as the visuals of priests collecting money from the Bhandara or the donation boxes of the Sree Guruvayurappan temple in Kerala. Reporting the same, a few other news websites and Facebook pages published the same video. They can be seen here and here.
When searched for further sources using keywords on the internet, a photo showing similar visuals of priests collecting money from a donation box was found in an article published by a news website. This news website confirmed it as the visuals of priests at the Sree Guruvayurappan temple collecting money from donation boxes as part of their regular customs. According to a few press reports, the Sree Guruvayurappan Temple accounted for an all-time record of Rs. 6.86 crores worth of donations in September 2022. In addition to the currency notes, more than four kilos of gold and 18 kilos of silver was obtained from the treasury boxes of the Sree Guruvayurappan Temple.
CSB Guruvayur Branch is responsible for counting the money from these treasury boxes. According to the Guruvayoor Devaswom Act, 1978, the Guruvayoor Devaswom Managing Committee has the complete authority and administration of this donation money received by the Sree Guruvayurappan temple. The Guruvayurappan temple priests do not have any direct authority over the money collected from the donation boxes. A few old videos showing similar visuals of Guruvayurappan temple priests collecting money from donation boxes can be seen here and here.
To sum it up, video of Sree Guruvayurappan temple’s priests collecting money from donation boxes is shared with a misleading narrative.
