Monkey pulls off ‘heist’ worth Rs 20 lakh at Banke Bihari temple; after 8-hour chase, police recover loot; here’s how the incident unfolded

AGRA: In a bizarre incident at Vrindavan's Banke Bihari temple, a monkey pulled off a ‘heist' by snatching a bag filled with diamond jewellery worth over Rs 20 lakh and led police and locals on an eight-hour chase before the loot was recovered from a bush.Abhishek Agarwal, a resident of Aligarh, was returning from the temple with his family on Thursday when the monkey sprang out of nowhere and grabbed his wife's purse. Inside the purse: a diamond-studded necklace, two diamond rings, three silver anklets, and two diamond tops — collectively worth a small fortune.Locals tried in vain to retrieve the bag. "It just darted up a tree and disappeared," said one shopkeeper near the temple.

The family then turned to the police for help.What ensued was an unusual investigation — cops scanning hours of CCTV footage to retrace the monkey's route. "After nearly eight hours, the purse was found abandoned in a bush, its contents intact," DSP Mathura Sadar Sandeep Kumar Singh said.This isn't Vrindavan's first brush with monkey mischief. In 2015, a monkey snatched a purse from a Mumbai woman and showered devotees below with Rs 1.5 lakh in cash — earning both curses and blessings at once.