Jayant Murali-led spl team to bring antique idols from overseas

CHENNAI: A special team headed by Idol Wing DGP K Jayanth Murali has been formed by Tamil Nadu police to bring back those identified idols, stolen from Tamil Nadu temples and once smuggled out of the country and now stacked with Collectors and museums abroad.

The decision to form a special team for this overseas assignment was taken in a high level meeting at state police HQ on Tuesday.

Idol Wing has tracked a number of antique idols to a number of museums in the USA and the UK in recent times by carrying out internet searches with the help of experts and matching available images from French Institute of Pondicherry.

Though the wing had started communicating with those museums and Collectors, the officers had to open talks via diplomatic channels to get the idols back to the temples in Tamil Nadu. “DGP Jayanth Murali will be heading the overseas assignment of the TN police to bring back dozens of antique idols. He will also take a small team of officials along with him,” sources said.

In the high–level meeting held on Tuesday at the state police headquarters, chaired by head of the police DGP C Sylendra Babu, it was decided that the special team will accelerate the process of retrieving the idols from USA, England, Australia and Singapore.

The meeting also discussed ways to speed up existing prosecution cases to make sure that the criminals involved in stealing and smuggling idols are punished in due course.