The Tamil Nadu Idol Wing CID has traced two idols stolen from the State to a museum in the US and submitted documents seeking their return to the country, police said on Wednesday. The two antique idols of Yoganarasimha and Ganesha belonging to Sri Venugopala Swamy temple, Alathur, Thiruvarur district, were traced to the Nelson-Atkins Museums, Kansas City, Missouri, USA. They were stolen from the temple about 50 years ago and replaced with fake images, the Idol Wing claimed.
“Based on the findings of our investigation, we have submitted papers proving our ownership of the idols to the government for onward transmission to the USA for repatriation of the same to Tamil Nadu,” Idol Wing DGP K Jayanth Murali said. The Idol Wing hopes to retrieve the idols and restore them to the Venugopala Swamy temple under the UNESCO treaty soon.
Murali and Idol Wing IGP R Dhinakaran thanked heritage enthusiast Vijay Kumar for initial inputs and appreciated ADSP Balamurugan, DSP Chandrasekaran and his team for taking expeditious steps in preparing the documents for retrieving the stolen idols. On February 28, 2017, S Nagarajan, Inspector, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR & CE) department, Mannargudi, preferred a complaint with the Vikrapandiyam police in Thiruvarur district, claiming the metal idols of Vishnu, Sridevi and Bhudevi belonging to Sri Venugopala Swamy temple, Alathur, kept in the temple’s safe custody were stolen.
A few remaining idols were handed over to the custody of Thiruvarur Icon Centre for secure possession, he said and sought the recovery of the antique idols of Vishnu, Sridevi, and Bhudevi stolen about half-a-century ago. Based on his complaint, a case was registered by the Vikrapandiyam police station and during the investigation the idols of Vishnu, Sridevi and Bhoodevi were traced to foreign Art Gallery i.e., “LACMA” Museum, Los Angeles, USA.
At this point of time Inspector Nagarajan who had handed over the custody of the remaining idols of Alathur, Viswanatha Swamy temple to Thiruvarur Icon Centre for safe custody, suspected the status of the remaining 6 idols lying at the Icon Center. He requested the Idol Wing to investigate the case. Since no photographs of the original idols of Yoganarasimha, Ganesha, Dancing Krishna, Dancing Sambanthar, Somaskandar and standing Vishnu were available with the temple, the Idol Wing checked with the photographs available with IFP (French Institute of Pondicherry).
Luckily, the pictures of the idols were available with the IFP. “After obtaining the pictures, we started looking for idols resembling the images with us on the websites of various museums worldwide,” Murali said in a release here. “During the search, we came across some photos of the idols resembling Yoganarasimha and Ganesha belonging to the Venugopala Swamy temple, displayed in the galleries of the Nelson-Atkins Museums, Kansas City, Missouri, USA,” the release further said.
The Idol Wing requested experts to study the images downloaded from the museum website with the images obtained from the Indo-French Institute, Pondicherry. The experts after a thorough study opined that photo images of antique Yoganarasimha, and Ganesha and idols taken by IFP and the two images downloaded from the Nelson-Atkins Museums website were the same. Investigation revealed that the idols of Yoganarasimha and Ganesha displayed in the galleries of the Nelson-Atkins Museums were stolen from the temple, about 50 years ago and replaced with replicas.
The IFP photos were taken on June 15, 1959, and the Venugopala Swamy temple came under the control of HR & CE in 1975.
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