Chennai, Feb 3 (BPNS)

The police in Myladuthurai Tamil Nadu arrested two temple priests for stealing the silver cover of a palanquin of a temple. The palanquin carries the deity and the incident occurred at the Parimalanathar temple Thiruindalur in Myladuthurai district.

The arrested are R. Srinivasa Ranga Battar( 53) and V. Muralidhara Dikshithar (58). The duo was arrested by the police on Thursday for stealing the silver cover of the palanquin.

The arrest was following a petition by a Chennai resident, Venkitaraman. The Idol Wing of the CB-CID police led by Assistant Commissioner, P. Rajaraman arrested the two.

It is alleged that the two priests tried to make a new silver cover instead of the old one and Police officers said that the antique value of the old Silver cover would be much more and that would be the reason for the stealing of the cover and making a new one.

In 2014, the Silver cover was missing from the temple and a complaint was lodged by the officials of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment( HR&CE) department at the Myladuthurai police station.

However, there was no progress in the case but a devotee named Venkitaraman from Chennai raked up the issue and pursued the case. Police said that the two priests were indulging in making a new silver cover to replace the old one only after the issue was taken up by Venkataraman.

The idol wing of the Tamil Nadu police took over the case on February 1 and found that Srinivasa Ranga Battar in connivance with Muralidhara Dikshithar had stolen the silver cover and when the issue became hot, tried to replace the old silver cover with a new one.

Idol wing Assistant Commissioner, P. Rajaraman while speaking to BPNS said, “ The case did not have proper leads as the case was registered in 2014 and was not pursued. We connected the missing dots and could find out that the silver covers were stolen by someone and on proper investigation, it was found that the two priests were involved in it.”