Miscreants looted a donation box at the southern gate of the Puri Shree Jagannath Temple.

The chief administrator of Puri Shree Jagannath Temple, Ranjan Kumar Das, said: “This has come to our notice. We will file an FIR soon.”

The temple office sources said the miscreants broke open the donation box at the southern gate using an iron rod and decamped with money and valuables leaving the empty donation box near the Nrushingha temple, a minor shrine on the temple premises.

When the temple opened on Friday morning, the servitors found the empty donation box and immediately alerted the Jagannath Temple Police (JTP).

Puri police are monitoring the CCTV footage but are yet to arrest anyone in connection with the incident. Donation boxes are installed near all four gates (on four sides) of the temple and they are also installed inside the Shree Jagannath Temple.

Every day, the temple receives Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh as donations besides valuable articles.

While theft of donation boxes in other temples of the state has been reported several times, such cases are rare in the 12th-century Shree Jagannath Temple which is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India. Its security is the responsibility of a dedicated police force.