The thief stole the donation box from the temple.
With their priceless idols, valuable ornaments and loaded donation boxes, temples often become targets of theft, but rarely do they see crooks who smartly drive up in a car in the middle of the night, pray and then leave with their haul.
That is what happened in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur where a thief was caught on CCTV cameras, driving up to the temple in a white hatchback, entering with folded hands and seemingly apologising to the idol before stealing the donation box.
The incident took place at around 2 am on Monday, the night before Diwali, at the Hanuman Temple in Gaur Chowki of Jabalpur which was gearing up for celebrations. The theft was reported by a visitor to the temple in the morning.
The police are on the lookout for the thief who had a wristwatch on his hand and had even left his slippers before entering the temple.
The crime is strikingly similar to one reported earlier this year in August from the same district, when a video showing a theft inside a temple went viral on social media.
Captured by the CCTV installed inside the temple in Sukha village, it showed a shirtless thief entering the inner sanctum and bowing before the chief deity - a goddess - before committing the crime.
A few months before that, another video went viral on social media that showed a thief breaking into dance after robbing a hardware shop. The incident took place in Uttar Pradesh's Chandauli, near the residence of a Superintendent of Police, in April this year.