The Tamil Nadu Police’s Idol Wing traced three bronze idols, stolen from Soundararaja Perumalkovil village temple near Kumbakonam 60 years ago, to museums and auction houses in the US. On February 12, 2020, Ka Raja, Executive Officer of the Hin- du Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department which administers the temple, lodged a complaint with the Idol Wing, complaining that an antique idol of Thirumangai Alwar was stolen from the temple executive officer, in the complaint, stated that it was believed that the idol was stolen between 1957 and 1967.
The idol was traced to the Ashmolean museum in Oxford and an independent researcher informed the museum that the idol could be a stolen one. Later it was found that the museum had bought the idol at an auction by Sotheby’s in London for 850 pounds from the collector, J.R. Belmont. After this, the Idol Wing suspected that other idols in the temple could be faked and We investigated other idols at the temple and could find that the idols were shifted to the Icon Centre (for safe keeping),” DGP, Idol Wing, Jayanth Murali, told media persons. The Idol Wing investigating officer approached the French Institute of Pondicherry (FIP) for the images of the idols – of Kalinganarathna Krishna, Vishnu, and Sridevi and compared them with the im- ages of the idols at the Icon center that were kept for safekeeping, and found they were different.
