Mangalore, July 15, 2013: In a joint operation in Bhubaneswar, the Mangalore police and the Odisha police have, on Saturday, recovered 15 idols that were stolen from a Jain shrine in Moodbidri on July 5. However, only three of idols were found intact.

Information on phone

Speaking to the The Hindu over phone, Nitinjeet Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Bhubaneswar, said based on the mobile number of the accused provided by a police team from Mangalore – that had arrived there on Tuesday – the police traced the accused to a house in Chandrashekharpur in Bhubaneswar.

During a raid on Saturday, the idols were recovered. The accused, Santosh Das, alias Ghanashyam Das, who hailed from Itamati area of Nayagarh district, is absconding.

“The accused was not there when his house was raided. We also have launched an investigation to trace the accused,” said Mr. Nitinjeet Singh.

The state of idols

Only three idols were intact, while seven others had been broken into pieces, he said. “They are too many pieces for us to figure out which idol they have come from,” he said. The remaining five idols have been melted into gold biscuits, which cumulatively weighed 1 kg, Mr. Nitinjeet Singh said.

The idols – some made of gold, encrusted with precious stones and one made of diamond – were stolen on the night of July 5 from Siddantha Darshan Block of Guru Basadi in Moodbidri which is more popularly known as Jain Kashi. On two earlier occasions, the accused was arrested on the theft charge. Santosh Das was accused in the case of theft of a Madanmohan idol from the Lingaraj temple in Bhubaneswar in the year 2000. Later, he was accused in a case of theft from a temple in Hyderabad. “On both the occasions, Santosh Das was the only person arrested. So, we believe that he might be the only one involved in the theft of idols from the Jain shrine,” said Mr. Singh.

‘No official info’

Mangalore City Commissioner Manish Kharbikar said he had not been officially intimated about the recovery of the idols. “Based on the information that we cannot reveal now, our teams have gone to many places. There has been no news of any recovery so far,” he said.

Sense of disbelief

Expressing his confusion at the news, Charukeerti Bhattaraka Panditacharyavarya Swami of the Jain shrine in Moodbidri said: “In some sense there is relief that the idols have been traced. But there is also immense sadness to know that some of them have been desecrated. Some of the stolen idols were made during the time of Chandragupta Maurya.”

Congratulating the police for their “swift action”, the seer said: “From entering the temple with his shoes on, to stealing the idols to defiling the sanctity of the idol, the thief has gravely insulted our tradition.”

The value of the stolen idols was said to be a few hundred crores of rupees.

Source: The Hindu, DT. July 15, 2013.