An employee of the famous Lord Venkateswara temple in Tirupati was on Monday caught inside the sanctum sanctorum while allegedly accepting cash from a party of pilgrims in return for facilitating an extended darshan.

The employee was in charge of regulating the crowd of devotees inside the sanctum sanctorum. He had taken the money in exchange for not making the pilgrims move quickly as is the normal practice in the busy temple.

Temple sources said the closed circuit television (CCTV) system caught the man taking money from the party.