The dead body of a priest of a temple atop Dalma hills was found lying at a dense jungle inside the Dalma wildlife sanctuary on Thursday morning. The 50-year-old man was identified as Giri Baba, who had gone missing from past week from the temple.
Sources informed that the local villagers found the body after a frenetic search of the missing priest and carried it near the Ganesh Temple on Dalma hills in which the deceased would worship.
The villagers suspect the priest might have been murdered as the body was found lying deep inside the jungle about half-kilometres away from the temple. Moreover, the articles belonging to the priest were also found lying spread on the floor of the temple.
“The priest had gone missing on the Ganesh Chaturthi, several villagers and other devotees had visited to the temple, but they could not see the priest there,” said a villager.
Surprisingly, even after the body was traced, the police are still not keen to go to the Dalma hills for recovering the body. The officer-in-charge, Bodam police station N K Mandal, when asked, said “The place where the incident took place does not belong to our jurisdiction. It comes under Chandil police station area only".