Chennai, Feb 1 (BPNS)
The Tamil Nadu police including the idol theft squad and the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR&CE) department has commenced a probe into the missing Punnai Mara Nathar (holy peacock ) idol from Kapaleeswar Temple, Chennai.
Madras High Court has on Monday ordered the state police and the HR&CE department to conduct a detailed probe into the missing peacock idol and submit a statement on the same within 6 weeks.
The order was passed by the First bench of the Madras High Court comprising of Chief Justice Muniswar Nath Bhandari and Justice P.D. Adikesavalu on a Public Interest Litigation filed in 2018. Rangarajan Narasimham of Srirangam in the PIL has petitioned the court that the Peacock idol was missing from the Kapaleeswar temple since 2004 and was replaced with a fake idol which is being worshipped now.
Following the court order, the Tamil Nadu idol theft squad has constituted a special team and commenced the investigation on the missing idol. The HR&CE fact-finding team is also conducting a simultaneous probe on the same.
The Idol Wing of the CB CID will be filing the report in the court within six weeks on what happened to the peacock idol. There were reports that the idol would have been stolen before 2004 and the former HR&CE commissioner, Phaneendra K. Reddy has said that the change of idol must have occurred during March 2003.
With several idols stolen from major temples of temples being traced to the United States and in some cases to certain European countries, the order of the Madras High Court is significant.
