BHUBANESWAR: As many as 45 silver ingots weighing about 35 kg each were recovered from Emar Mutt, one of the oldest mutts in Puri belonging to the Ramanuj sect, on Saturday.
Official sources said the recovery will be compared with the inventory made back in 2010.
The comparison will help in ascertaining whether these are new findings or they already existed in the inventory made about 11 years back, they said.
A number of valuables and antiques were also recovered from the ancient mutt. They include a silver tree and silver flowers, about 16 antique swords, and a bronze cow sculpture.
In 2011, a planned loot from the mutt had come to light when two masons involved in its renovation work were caught by Dhenkanal Police while they were trying to dispose of two silver ingots weighing over 30 kg each.
During the interrogation of the duo, Dhenkanal police had traced the links to the Emar Mutt. Their Puri counterparts had later taken over the case and had seized silver ingots totaling 522 pieces weighing over 18 tonnes. The treasure was valued at over Rs 90 crore.
Former Emar Mutt Mahant Rajgopal Das had claimed the ownership and filed a case in the High Court seeking direction to the police to hand over the property to the mutt.
However, the police had arrested Das and 15 others on charges of conspiring and stealing the mutt property. The ingots were then shifted from Emar Mutt to district armoury inside the Police Reserve.
Later, the Commissioner of Endowments had constituted a trust to manage the affairs of the mutt.
As Das did not cooperate with the trust body, the administration forcefully entered into the mutt by breaking open its doors and he was stripped of all his powers.
A four-member trust body headed by Narayan Ramanuj Das, who is the mahant of Utter Parsva Mutt, had taken over the Emar Mutt on Friday, and the inventory of all the valuables was made in the presence of a magistrate.