CHENNAI: The Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department on Tuesday informed the Madras High Court that about 29 people have been probed in connection with the theft of a peacock idol from Arulmigu Kapaleeswarar Temple, Mylapore.

The HR&CE made this submission before the first bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice N Mala. The bench was hearing a plea filed by Rangarajan Narasimhan, an activist from Srirangam.

The petitioner sought a direction to take action against HR&CE officials and people who are responsible for the theft of the peacock idol from the temple in 2004.

The petitioner claimed that actually the original peacock idol was made in a way of having a flower in its beak. Instead of the original peacock idol, another one was kept in the temple, which had a snake in its beak, according to the petitioner. The HR&CE Department submitted that a fact-finding committee headed by Justice (retired) K Venkatraman had probed about 29 people regarding the peacock idol theft case.

“The fact-finding committee is about to grill nine more people. If the court permits, the government is also ready to install another peacock idol having a flower in its beak,” the government advocate submitted.

Recording the submissions, the bench posted the matter to June 28.

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