[1]Six persons were arrested and four panchaloha idols, stolen from a temple in Sivaganga, were recovered by the sleuths at the Idol wing of the Economic Offence Department at the Sivaganga bus stand during a vehicle check.
The arrested include a temple sculptor. Nagarajan.“He stumbled upon the idols that are suspected to have been hidden in the temple centuries ago.
He then stole them and was trying to sell them to foreign buyers when the idol wing team arrested him and five others.
The police are on the lookout for six others, including a retired village administrative officer,” said Mr. R. Arumuga, inspector general of police, EOW.
The team estimates that the four idols can fetch around Rs 20 crore in the overseas grey market. The seized idols were handed over to the HR&CE commissioner J Chandrakumar.
who said that efforts were on to install surveillance cameras and alarms in over 38,000 temple in the state.
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