A bizarre incident of a temple priest behaving like a street thug and thrashing a devotee inside the temple last week has come to light.
According to reports, a devotee named Valmiki Rao of Balaji Hills in Uppal had visited the Ganesh temple beside the Rathifile bus station near the Secunderabad railway station last Sunday in the evening.
While the devotee was having a darsan of the deities in the temple one after the other, one of the priests identified as Prabhakar Sharma reportedly pounced on Rao asking him why he had entered the temple without his permission, and abused him in filthy language, leaving other devotees staring aghast at the scene.
The priest also allegedly told Rao to get out and dared him to complain to anyone.
The entire scene was recorded in the CC camera in the temple premises, and came to light after a few days.
Hurt by the behaviour of the priest, Rao lodged a complaint with the Ramgopal police station, and the police took Prabhakar Sharma into custody and took up an investigation.