CHENNAI: An emerald idol that dates back to nearly 400 years ago was stolen from the Suyambeeswarar temple in Thiruporur nearly 50 km from Chennai.
On Saturday morning, Ganesan, a worker at the temple, found the door to the temple broken and the priceless emerald idol stolen. He immediately informed the Thiruporur police.
T Anand (34) lodged a complaint with the police, saying that the idol was made of emerald and based on the complaint, the Thiruporur police filed an FIR. Anand, a resident of Illalur village where the ancient temple is located, who works in the drinking water business, told Express, “This temple is nearly 400 years old. The emerald idol is a priceless antique. The temple has been maintained by each generation in our village. This temple is under the HR&CE control, but none of the department personnel had visited this temple for very long.”
He said that kumbabhishekam was performed 12 years ago and at that time the idol was put away in the corner and was not since used. After this, the temple priest told the villagers that it was made of emerald.
“From then on we maintained the temple and guarded it,” he said. “On June 5, we found some suspicious movements in the temple. Later, we came to know these people enquired about the idol and the priest was on duty then and told them all special features about emerald.”
Next night the locals heard some noise from the temple and tried to catch hold of the thieves who, however, fled from the scene. However, the locals managed to get their two-wheeler and handed it over to police. “After this we checked the temple and found that they had poured some kind of liquid there. They had taken the top portion of the statue and pasted some kind of semi-liquid on the door.”
“When the incident was reported, our Joint Commissioner and other officials visited the temple on Saturday morning,” said Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Commissioner M Veera Shanmuga Moni. “This temple is under the control of the HR&CE. We checked the base of the idol and our officer confirmed that it was not emerald but green marble. The temple is more than 400 years old and there are presently six emeralds in Tamil Nadu.”
The HR&CE Commissioner, however, refused to answer whether the details were given to the idol wing though it appears that no details had been given. “We have registered a case as one of theft of emerald under section 457 & 380, IPC (lurking, house-trespass or house-breaking by night in order to commit offence punishable with imprisonment and the other charge being theft in dwelling house). Based on the information, investigations are going on,” the police said.
Emeralds in temples
“There are 36,000 temples in Tamil Nadu,” sources in the idol wing told Express. “Six emeralds have been stolen in the last one year and we have recovered two. Two years ago, we wrote thousands of letters about how many temples had emeralds in Tamil Nadu to the HR&CE. But we have received no response from them,” added the sources.
Idol wing’s suggestions
The idol wing IG Ponmanikkavel has written a letter to the HR&CE department, elaborating on the security of the temple. He insisted that a door of 30 cm width be made and covered to safeguard the idol whereas the outer cover should be a 10-cm-wide iron rod. He added that all ancient temples should be covered by CCTV.