The Indian Police had seized the idols, worth millions of rupees, from Dumariyagunj area of Siddharth Nagar district in Uttar Pradesh in India last Tuesday, according to Indian Express newspaper. The idols were reportedly stolen from Ram Janaki Temple in Kapilvastu district. [break]
The priest of the temple had moved an application before Chief Judicial Magistrate Sudama Prasad requesting that the idols be handed over to him.
The court had directed the Siddhartha Nagar Police to submit the case details and fixed a hearing for Monday. "I have learned that the hearing could not take place because of a strike called by local advocates. I am yet to learn more about it," said SP Sharad Chand, chief of Kapilvastu District Police Office, who had coordinated with the Siddhartha Nagar police to hunt down the burglars after the case was reported to him.
In his application, the priest, Mahant Bittan Das said that the idols were stolen by three persons who stayed at the temple on March 15, posing as priests from Ayodhya. Das had also lodged a complaint at Bahadurgunj police station in Kapilvastu.
The police had seized the idols -- a 29-cm Lord Ram idol, 27-cm idols of Sita and Laxman and two 8-cm idols of other deities -- from Vindyachal Kewat, a resident of Basti, while two of his associates had managed to flee.
On learning about the seizure of idols through newspaper reports, the temple priest and the temple committee president Ram Lothan, accompanied by officers of Bahadurgunj police station, went to Dumariyaganj and identified the idols.
According to media reports in India, AK Shukla, in-charge of the Dumariyagunj police station, said, “There is no doubt that the recovered idols were stolen from that temple but the idols are now a case property.”
Siddharth Nagar SP Prashant Kumar, meanwhile, refused to comment on the issue saying the matter is sub-judice.
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