An Indian devotee who accidentally dropped his iPhone into the collection box at a Hindu temple while making a donation was told that the phone was now the deity’s property and could not be returned.
Last month, a Chennai man who was visiting Arulmigu Kandaswamy Temple in Thiruporur with his family to offer prayers, felt his iPhone slip out of his pocket and into the hundial – a metal donation box – just as he was making offerings to the temple’s patron deity. The man, referred to only as Dinesh, approached temple officials and explained the incident, demanding that his handheld be returned. To his surprise, they refused, claiming that rules did not permit them to return anything placed into the hundial, willingly or accidentally, because it is the deity’s property.
[Source: ODDITY CENTRAL]