Times of India: Jammu: Thursday,
January 30, 2014.
Forty-three
kg of gold and 57,000 kg of silver offered by devotees at the Shri Mata Vaishno
Devi temple in Jammu and Kashmir have been found to be fake, an RTI application
has revealed.
The RTI query
elicited the information that 193.5 kg of gold and 81,635 kg of silver was
offered at the shrine at Katra town in the last five years.
"Of
this, 43 kg of gold and 57,815 kg of silver turned out to be fake," M K
Bhandari, chief executive officer of the board that manages the shrine, told
IANS.
"We send
the precious metal offerings to the government for melting and converting
(them) into gold and silver coins which the devotees buy as souvenirs."
He said some
devotees may be buying gold and silver without checking their purity.
The Shri Mata
Vaishno Devi temple is one of the most revered shrines. It was visited by over
one crore devotees last year.
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