A day after desecration of idols at a temple in Andhra Pradesh came to light, the Andhra Police have found that a mentally disturbed woman who was under the influence of toddy was the one who had desecrated the idols.
The Kuppam Urban police had received a complaint about desecration of idols at the Subramaniam Swamy temple located on a hill, in Gonuguru village of Chittoor’s Kuppam. Based on the complaint, the police swung into action and formed three special teams to investigate the case.
On investigation, it was found that a woman, Jyothi, who is allegedly mentally disturbed had desecrated the idols when she was under the influence of toddy on March 31. Jyothi is known to be a regular visitor of the temple.
“The temple is very rarely visited by devotees, unless it is a special occasion. Even the priest visits the temple only once a week,” said Chittoor SP, Senthil Kumar. “Upon receiving the complaint on Wednesday, we started the investigation immediately. The temple management, priest and locals voiced their suspicions about a woman named Jyothi. Jyothi, who is mentally disturbed frequently visited the temple at odd hours according to the locals. Upon following this lead, we traced Jyothi,” he added.
Senthil Kumar said that subsequently when the police tried asking Jyothi if she had anything to do with it, she revealed that on the 31st of March, after consuming toddy at a local store, she went to the temple, desecrated the idol and placed them in a ditch 20m away from the temple.
Jyothi allegedly also confessed to the police that after the act, she went back to her village and told people that she had killed Murugan. Knowing her state of mind, they did not take her seriously. The locals refer to the deity Subramanian Swamy as Murugan. On April 6, when the priest visited the temple the matter was noticed and a complaint was filed with the police.
“We thank each one who helped us crack the case in 24 hours” said Chittoor SP.
Thanking the police for detecting the case within a day, Balu Mahendran, the temple’s peace committee chairman, said, ‘We thank the police for detecting the case within 24 hours. We doubted Jyothi as we have seen her spending most of her day at the temple, even at odd hours. Once we began discussing it, we realized that she had even confessed to multiple villagers that she had done this.”
On Wednesday, opposition leader Chandrababu Naidu had expressed concern over the continuing attacks and demolitions at temples in the state. He blamed Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy’s complacency for the attacks.
In a statement, Naidu said, “The negligence of the Government is making miscreants bold enough to carry out more and more attacks on the temples. The Kuppam incident came as a big shock not only to the people of the Chittoor district but the entire state as a whole.”