Priests arrested in TN for stealing silver cover of temple palanquin

Chennai: The police in Myladuthurai in Tamil Nadu arrested two priests for stealing the silver cover of a palanquin of the temple. The palanquin carries the deity and the incident occurred at the Parimalanathar temple at Thiruindalur in Myladuthurai district.

The arrested priests are R. Srinivasa Ranga Battar( 53) and V. Muralidhara Dikshithar (58). The duo was arrested on Thursday.

The arrests were made following a complaint by a Chennai resident, Venkitaraman. The Idol Wing of the CB-CID police led by Assistant Commissioner, P. Rajaraman arrested the two.

It is alleged that the two priests tried to make a new silver cover and take the original one. Police officers said that the antique value of the old silver cover would be much more and that would be the reason for stealing it.

In 2014, the silver cover went missing from the temple and a complaint was lodged by the officials of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment( HR&CE) department at the Myladuthurai police station.

However, there was no progress in the case but a devotee named Venkitaraman from Chennai pursued the case. Police said that the two priests tried to make a new silver cover to replace the old one only after the issue was taken up by the devotee.

The idol wing of the Tamil Nadu police took over the case on February 1 and found that Srinivasa Ranga Battar in connivance with Muralidhara Dikshithar had stolen the silver cover and when the issue became hot, tried to replace the old silver cover with a new one.

Assistant Commissioner P. Rajaraman told IANS, “The case did not have proper leads as it was registered in 2014 and was not pursued. We connected the missing dots and found that the silver covers were stolen by someone and on proper investigation, it was found that the two priests were involved in it.”