Idol wing seizes emerald statues worth Rs 7 crore, three held in Erode

Acting on a tip-off, a police team led by Idol Wing IG Pon Manickavel stormed into a room at a private lodge on the Erode-Mettur Road and carried out a search. 

The cops seized a lingam and a Nandi statue, both made of emerald from three persons identified as Gajendran, 40, Chandrasekaran, 43, both from Erode district and Maniraj, 46 from Namakkal district. 

Pon Manickavel said that both the statues were stolen five years ago from a 1,200-year-old temple in Namakkal district. 

“Both statues have changed hands with at least 15 persons as they could not sell them. The exact value of these antique statues in the international market is not known. They will be handed over to experts to examine their originality and the substance they were made of,” he said. 

The accused are only agents and a probe is on to trace those behind the racket. “Intensive efforts are on to nab the prime accused, who is behind the idol smuggling racket. Special teams of police have gone to Tirupur and Tiruchy to nab the culprit,” the IG said. 

Further, Pon Manickavel said that all porous routes in Tamil Nadu have been blocked to prevent smuggling of idols to foreign countries.

“A pair of ‘Dwarapalaka’ idols worth about Rs 4.98 crore and stolen in 1995 from a 1,600-yearold temple in Tirunelveli was recovered recently from the National Gallery of Australia at Canberra. An inquiry is on with international smugglers Lakshmi Narayanan of Chennai and his assistant Annadurai,” he said.