The Crime Investigation Department (CID) of the Tamil Nadu Police’s Idol Wing has tracked down an old idol of Lord Murugan that was stolen from a Pallava-era Shiva temple in Thachur village of the Kallakurichi district of Tamil Nadu 23 years ago and found it in the United States.
The ancient Shiva temple was constructed in the 7th or 8th century (late Pallava period), according to idol wing officials, and it included 13 stone idols. The temple was demolished and the stone idols were buried in the ground during the invasions of Malik Kafur and later Mughal monarchs.
The locals resumed their worship of these deities in 1998. However, some miscreants stole the idol of Lord Murugan in 2000, but no complaint was made.
Periyasamy, a man from the Thachur village, went to the idol wing and complained about the missing Murugan idol after learning how the idol wing found and restored three idols that had been taken from another temple in Ulundurpet.
Officials from the idol wing visited the temple after registering a case to interview witnesses. They also learned that images of the standing Lord Murugan idol that had been stolen as well as other idols from the Shiva temple had been printed in a book called ‘Thadayam.’
After that, both domestic and foreign museums’ websites were thoroughly searched.
The idol wing sleuths located the stolen Murugan idol by comparing the photo of the idol they had obtained from the book to the list of idols that Homeland Security Investigations in the US had seized.
The Lord Murugan stone idol will be returned once the idol wing receives a list of seizures from Homeland Security. This will be done by submitting a request under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the US through the ministries of Home Affairs and External Affairs of the Governments of India and Tamil Nadu.
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