July 3, 2013: Larkana SSP Syed Pir Muhammad Shah said at a press conference in his office that Abdul Sattar Kumbhar had stolen the statues from the Harijan temple located in Ali Goharabad mohalla within the jurisdiction of the Market police station last Saturday.

The police officer added that there appeared to be no religious motive for the theft which was simply an act of greed.

According to him, three suspects are behind the theft and the police are searching for the other two after catching one of them.

SSP Shah said the statues, each weighing about a kilo, were made of bronze and daubed in gold. The thieves sold the five idols for Rs. 5,000 to scrap dealer Nadeem Ahmed Sheikh, who runs his shop on Empire Road.

Sheikh had broken the statues into smaller pieces and packed them. He was planning to dispatch them to Lahore on Tuesday.

Acting on a tip-off, the police raided his shop and recovered the dismantled statues, the SSP said. He added that the police got hold of Kumbhar with the information provided by the scrap dealer. Kumbhar told reporters at the press conference he thought the idols were made of gold.

On the complaint of Mukesh Kumar, a caretaker of the Harijan temple, the Market police registered an FIR under Sections 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class) and 380 (theft in dwelling house etc) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

A spokesperson for the Larkana SSP told Dawn that other than Kumbhar and Sheikh, who were under arrest, two more people — Ayaz Ahmed Sheikh and Dost Nuhammed Sheikh — had been nominated in the FIR.

Source: dawn.com, DT. July 3, 2013.