Missing book: Idol wing grills Thanjai library staff

The idol wing police on Wednesday quizzed the serving and retired staff of the Sarawathi Mahal library from where a rare copy of Puthiya Agamangalin (Mudalam Pangu), a Tamil book on new Testament published in 1810 at Tranquebar, was stolen in 2006.

According to sources, the theft took place on October 8, 2006 when two German tourists, who had come to the library, browsed the book after taking it out from the closed glass panel.

The duo had also reportedly taken picture of the book. Later that day, however, the book went missing. Subsequently, a complaint was filed with the Thanjavur West police station. However the book was not traced till date.

Continuing their efforts to trace the book, the Idol wing police officials, including DSP Chandrasekar visited the library on Wednesday. They held inquiries with the retired and serving employees of the historic library for more than five hours. Sources said investigations would continue.

There are over 69,000 rare books on various subjects in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit, Marathi, Gujarati and English and over 39,000 palm scripts available in the Saraswathi Mahal library.

The public are allowed to visit the library, which is being maintained by the School Education Department.