Idol Wing CID conducts probe on Chola era copper plates missing from Srirangam temple museum

TIRUCHY: Idol wing Crime Investigation Department (CID) SP visited the Srirangam Sri Ranganathaswamy temple museum on Friday and requested the public to help them find the missing Chola era copper plates from 1957.

According to the idol wing sleuths, the Sri Satyavageeswara temple at Anbil in Tiruchy had a set of antique copper plates that mentioned the details of the donation of lands by Sundara Cholan to his minister back in 691 AD and also mentioned the spiritual service of Madhava Bhattar and his ancestors to Srirangam Sri Ranganatha Swamy temple.

It is said that a group of archaeologists from Mysuru in Karnataka had visited the Satyavageeswara temple at Anbil in 1957 and took a copy of the copper plates after which those plates had been missing from the temple.

The issue came to light after the director of the Chennai Museum complained to the IWCID in 2023. IWCID filed a first information report (FIR) and conducted inquiries. Despite the IWCID conducting a detailed inquiry with the temple archakas and VAO, they could not get any information.

In such a backdrop, on Friday, the Idol wing CID SP R Sivakumar visited the Srirangam temple and inspected the details of the copper plates at the museum.

Later, he went to the Satyavageeswara temple in Anbil and conducted an inquiry with the temple staff and the Joint Commissioner (HR and CE) Mariappan. He also sought the public to help the team in recovering the missing plates.