Centuries-old idol stolen from Thanjavur temple

Sources said, the executive officer K Suresh was conducting a scrutiny of the idols in Kasi Viswanathar Temple at Muthamalpuram near Orathanadu for the past few days.

He found that 24 processional deities and 60 stone idols tallied with the register maintained in the temple. When they inspected the presiding deity of age old Kala Samharamurthy idol, he had a suspicion and so the official had compared the idol with that of the photo of the original idol in which the official found that the idol available was a fake one. Subsequently, he lodged a complaint with the idol wing police on Friday late hours.

Based on the complaint the idol wing police registered a case on Saturday and the DSP U Muthuraja visited the spot and accelerated the investigation.

According to the Executive Officer Suresh, the particular idol was installed in the temple several centuries back ever since the temple was established.

The present one did not match with the original idol’s picture which is in the temple’s possession and so the miscreants had made a fake one and had reportedly stolen the original one, he said.

The idol wing sleuths have registered a case under Sections 380, 403, 409 and 411 of IPC and begun investigation. Idol wing sleuths said that the temple is centuries old and the missing idol is said to be worth crores in the international market.