Surrounded by trinkets and soft toys in his small room above the historic temple, he told the South China Morning Post yesterday: 'I am a holy person, a priest, and every day I do the prayers for prosperity and peace.

'This is my Karma,' he said.

The Hindu Temple, a landmark building overlooking the Happy Valley racecourse in Wong Nei Chong Road, performs a range of services for thousands of people.

In its lavishly-decorated temple hall, couples who are members can be honourably engaged for $3,000 and married for $5,000.

In April last year the managing committee of the Hindu Association, which is responsible for the temple, decided to make Priest Vishal Sharma responsible for temple hall bookings, according to a notice board memorandum.

A managing committee member, M. P. Shamdaswani, revealed that funds from the prayer collection plate had gone astray.

'It is very hard to know how much is missing,' Mr Shamdaswani said last night.

'When we finish prayers all the money should go to the collections account.

'This is a private incident between our members and we have no right to bring it out until it is clarified.

'Our chairman has called a meeting and we are going to attend this meeting in a few days to decide about this,' he said.

Another committee member, Lakhi Melwani, said: 'I don't think we should be making a postmortem about this chapter. I would not be very keen on getting it in the newspaper.' A prominent Indian community figure, who requested anonymity, said: 'I have heard that funds are missing - some say $100,000 and some say $400,000. It's quite a scandal in our community.'