BHUBANESWAR: In a major breakthrough, Nayagarh police arrested four persons in connection with two high-profile temple burglaries in the district and recovered huge amount of stolen ornaments belonging to the shrines.
Eight gold ‘chita’ weighing about 32 grams, silver crown and ornaments weighing about 1.5 kg, brass and bronze utensils of 34 kg were seized from the possession of the burglars who were arrested following a multi-district raid by a police team of the district.
The jewellery and valuables were stolen from Jagannath temple and subsequently from Gopinath temple in Nayagarh town. The accused were identified as Susanta Karmi, Laxminarayan Nayak, Sahil Patra and Gourahari Mohanty.
Police said the accused committed the burglary first at Jagannath temple in the intervening night of February 19 and 20 and looted all the valuables including silver ornaments of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Goddess Subhadra along with around Rs 50,000 cash from the hundi (donation box).
On February 28 night, they committed the crime in Gopinath temple and took all the silver and gold ornaments of Lord Gopinath along with Rs 15,000 from the donation box.
Nayagarh SP S Susree constituted a police team led by Inspector Rasmi Ranjan Mohapatra and supervised by Nayagarh SDPO Jyoti Ranjan Samantaray. The team carried out raids and apprehended the accused after examining CCTV footage and the photos collected from the AI cameras installed in different localities.
Police said the accused, as part of their modus operandi, were watching temple related blogs on social media platforms to get details after which one member from the group used to carry out the burglary. Karmi was booked in 11 cases while Nayak has three cases against his name. They were allegedly involved in temple burglaries across six districts of the state.
Police also seized a mobile phone, two iron crow-bars, two airbags and Rs 40,000 cash from their possession.