Chennai, Aug 8 (BPNS)

The Tamil Nadu idol wing police have traced an idol of Goddess Parvati that was stolen from a temple to the Bonhams auction house in New York.

According to the police, the Parvati idol was part of five idols that were burgled from the Nadanapureshwarar temple at Kumbakonam. The burglary had taken place on May 12, 1971, and the police have now traced the Parvati idol to the auction house and have commenced the process to retrieve the idol back to India under the UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention 1972.

Jayanth Murali, DGP, Idol Wing CID of Tamil Nadu police while speaking to IANS said, “ We sought the help of an archeologist who said that the photograph of the idol of Parvati that was kept at the French Institute of Pondicherry and the idol of Parvati on sale at Bonham’s auction house is the same. This means that the idol of Parvati at Bonhams belongs to the Nadanapureshwarar temple at Kumbakonam.”

Idol wing police officers also said that the idol was one among the five idols that were stolen from the Nadanapureshwarar temple on May 12, 1971, and on the next day a complaint was lodged at Nachiarkoyil police station.

In 2019, K. Vasu, a temple trustee lodged another complaint and said that he had seen the idols in 1971 when they were in public worship, and after that, he had not seen the idols.  In the complaint lodged with the idol wing police in 2019, Vasu said that he had seen the locks of the temple broken while reaching there for worship and then two trustees of the temple had complained to the Nachiarkoyil police and the inspector had visited the temple.

Vasu in his complaint lodged in 2019 said that even after the Sub Inspector visited the temple, no FIR was lodged and hence he was filing the complaint. He filed the complaint with the Special Officer of the idol wing, S.G. Pon Manickavel, and a case was registered in 2019.

The idol wing CID police were on the lookout for the missing idols and have now traced the idol of Parvati to the auction house in New York.

Senior officers with the idol wing told BPNS that they are tracing the remaining four idols.