CHENNAI: The Idol Wing CID has sent proposals to a museum and an auction house in the US for bringing back two antique Chola-era idols, which were stolen from a temple in Tiruvarur district 50 years ago. The idols—Vishnu and dancing Krishna—belong to the Venugopala Swamy Temple at Alathur. The Vishnu idol was traced to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York while the dancing Krishna idol was traced to Christie’s, an auction house. The proposals were drawn up under the Mutual Legal Agreement Treaty and sent to the US last week
The investigation, which led to the discovery of these idols and several others, began based on a complaint lodged by S Nagarajan, an HR&CE inspector, at Vikrapandiyam at Tiruvarur in 2017. He said in the complaint that three antique metal idols belonging to Viswanatha Swamy temple in Tiruvarur district were stolen and replaced with replicas.
No image of the original idols was with temple management, a press release said. After an investigation, the three idols—Vishnu, Sridevi and Budevi—were traced to a museum in Los Angeles in the US. Subsequently, HR&CE department moved a few other idols of the Viswanatha Swamy temple to Tiruvarur Icon Centre for safekeeping. When a few idols were checked, they turned out to be replicas.
The department then requested Idol Wing to investigate the matter. Yoganarasimha, Ganesha, Dancing Sambandhar and Somaskandar idols were traced to museums and auction houses in the US. To trace the Vishnu and dancing Krishna idols, police first obtained their original photos, scoured the web and found pictures of the idols on the websites of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Christie’s.