13 idols stolen from 600-year-old Thanjavur Jain temple in a single day

When Jalendran, the priest at Sri Adheeshwarar Jain temple, located on Jain Muthali street, near Karathai, in Thanjavur, entered the temple for the morning pooja, he was shocked to see the doors at the back side of the temple broken. Soon, he passed on the information to temple trustee Appande Rajan, who alerted the Thanjavur West police.

On information, a police team, led by Thanjavur SP Maheswaran and DSP Ravichandran, rushed to the spot and conducted an inquiry and found that miscreants had stolen as many as 13 idols of various sizes and metals, including panchaloka, bronze and copper.

The police inspected the CCTV footage in which a gang of unidentified persons was seen blowing bubble spray to avoid identification in the camera and so the images were not proper.

Later, a sniffer dog was brought in for investigation, which ran up to Vadavaru and returned as the miscreants had sprinkled chili powder all over.

Still, the police continued with the investigation and took away the footages from all the three CCTV cameras. A case has been registered and search is on for the miscreants.