The Idol Wing of the Tamil Nadu police has arrested four persons and retrieved five bronze idols from them that were stolen from Arulmigu Adinatha Perumal Ranganayaki Ammal temple in Dindigul district, an official said on Wednesday, August 17. The arrested individuals have been identified as Prabhakaran, R Ilavarasan, G Paulraj, and M Dinesh Kumar. All of them are from Dindigul district.

According to police, the main accused in the case, Prabhakaran had stolen the idols from the temple in May 2021. The temple authorities had not filed a complaint but the idol wing police came to know that they were planning to sell the idols at a price of Rs 12 crore. The idols were of Perumal, Sreedevi, Bhudevi, Chandrashekara, and Parvati.

The DGP of the state Idol Wing police, Jayanth Murali, received information about the stolen idols and sent a special team of Idol Wing police to nab the culprits and retrieve them.

According to Idol Wing police sources, Additional Superintendent of Police, Mailachami, and his team of Sub Inspectors and constables carried out an undercover operation and established contact with the smugglers who were in possession of the idols. Police officers posing as buyers had approached the smugglers but they did not show the idols suspecting the potential buyers to be police officers. A police officer told IANS that it was after much convincing that they agreed to show the idols and when the articles were shown, all the four individuals were apprehended. They are being questioned at the idol wing police station for further information as to whether they were involved in other temple thefts.

On August 8, a 1000-year-old idol of goddess Parvati that went missing from the Nadanapureshwarar Sivan Temple at Thandanthottam in Kumbakonam, half a century ago, was retrieved by the Idol Wing. The statue was traced to New York and was found at the Bonhams Auction House, the Idol Wing police said.