MURTI-SNATCH AT JAGANNATH TEMPLE

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IDOL-SNATCH AT JAGANNATH TEMPLE

 

FROM DEBABRATA MOHANTY

 

Puri, Nov. 11:

Even gods are not safe anymore. Burglars broke into Sri Jagannath

temple this morning and made off with two priceless idols from a

shrine just behind the sanctum sanctorum of one of the most famous

pilgrimage centres in the country.

 

The temple administration said the thieves had also tried to enter

the main shrine, where the idols of Jagannath, Balabhadra and

Subhadra are kept on a ratna simhasan.

 

Puri temple administrator Bhabani Shankar Panda said the burglars had

picked the locks on one of the doors leading to the sanctum sanctorum.

 

The missing idols of Madanamohan and Amavasya Narayana, both

incarnations of Lord Vishnu, are made of an amalgam of silver and

other precious metals, known as a shtadhatu.

 

The idols were deities at the Baharadeuli temple in the 13th century

complex.

 

The pre-dawn heist is the second in less than a week in a temple in

Orissa. Last Monday, the 11th century Lingaraj temple at Bhubaneswar

was broken into and gold as well as silver wares valued at Rs 1 lakh

were stolen.

 

The thieves had also taken away the silver mask of Lingaraj, only to

throw it in an unused well on the temple premises.

 

The two-feet-high, 15-kg idol of Madanamohan, who represents

Jagannath during the Chandan Yatra in summer, was found missing when

temple servitors came to open the shrine at 5 am. The five-kg silver

idol of Amavasya Narayana, said to be the deity of the new-moon day,

was stolen after the burglars smashed the locks.

 

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik said the CBI would be asked to probe

the burglary. The crime branch will conduct a parallel probe.

 

Three employees of the temple have been detained and 13 securitymen,

including eight members of the Jagannath Temple Police, suspended for

dereliction of duty.

 

As soon as the burglary was discovered, the temple was closed to

pilgrims, all rituals were stopped and roads leading to the temple

town were sealed. The rituals were resumed after the servitors

brought another idol of Madanamohan from a math. Pilgrims were

allowed in after 12 noon.