Through India Nowadays Global Table: An Indian leader priest of Singapore’s Hindu temple was once sentenced to 6 years in prison on Tuesday for misappropriating over 2 million Singapore Bucks ($1.5 million) of bijou again and again from a outstanding temple, in keeping with media stories.
Kandasamy Senapathi was once appointed as a clergyman at Sri Mariamman Temple via the Hindu Endowments Board within the downtown Chinatown district from December 2013 till he resigned on March 30, 2020.
He was once discovered accountable of prison breach of consider via cheating misappropriation and two fees of remitting prison complaints in another country, with six different fees additionally regarded as all the way through the conviction, in keeping with the stories of Channel Information Asia.
Senapathi, an Indian nationwide, was once stuck all the way through the Covid-19 pandemic which disturbed the common audit timing and printed the lacking jewelry.
ALSO READ | Offended mob beats 50-year-old to loss of life over suspicion of bicycle robbery in Bengal
In 2014, keys and aggregate numbers for the secure within the temple’s holy sanctum had been passed to Senapathi, which contained 255 items of gold jewelry owned via the temple, with a guide price of about SGD 1.1 million.
Senapathi began pawning items of bijou in 2016, taking them to pawn stores and later redeeming them via the usage of cash he acquired from pawning different items of temple jewelry.
In 2016, Senapathi pawned 66 items of gold jewelry from the temple on 172 events, the file mentioned.
He endured this custom between 2016 and 2020, redeeming all of the jewelry and returning it to the temple prior to the audit was once scheduled. As soon as the audit was once finished, he would pawn the jewelry once more to go back the borrowed cash.
Senapathi were given SGD 2,328,760 from pawn stores between 2016 to 2020, of which he remitted about SGD 141,000 to India and deposited the remainder quantity into his checking account.
In March 2020, on the top of the Covid-19 pandemic in Singapore, the audit was once not on time because of the “circuit breaker” measures forbidding non-essential task in Singapore.
Later all the way through the June 2020 audit, Senapathi misled contributors of the temple finance workforce that he didn’t have the important thing to the secure and mentioned he had most probably forgotten the important thing in India whilst visiting circle of relatives.
On the other hand, when the body of workers member insisted that the audit be executed, Senapathi in the end confessed that he had taken the jewelry for pawning.
Later, all of the jewelry was once returned to the temple, and the temple suffered no loss, the prosecutor mentioned.
A police file was once filed towards the temple priest via a member of the temple committee.
Consistent with the prosecutor, Senapathi had resigned after the incident. A seven-year prison sentence was once additionally demanded via the prosecutor for pointing to the prime pawn price of the jewelry concerned.
Senapathi, on the other hand, in his defence, mentioned that he sought after to assist a chum elevate budget for most cancers and to assist colleges and temples in India.
Whilst saying the decision, the pass judgement on mentioned he may no longer forget about that the case concerned about SGD 2 million, an important quantity and better than any earlier identical circumstances.
In a observation following the listening to, the Hindu Endowments Board (HEB) mentioned it had commissioned a gold audit after the incident at its 4 temples – Sri Mariamman, Sri Srinivasa Perumal, Sri Sivan and Sri Vairavimada Kaliamman.
The audit showed that every one jewelry was once adequately accounted for. Knowledgeable goldsmith additionally qualified that the jewelry Senapathi had returned was once original.
“HEB has additional tightened its governance and interior controls to verify its charitable property stay secure,” the file quoted the board as pronouncing.
(With inputs from PTI.)