Chennai: Fifteen years after it was stolen from the Virudhakreeswarar temple in Virudhachalam for international idol smuggler Subash Kapoor, now jailed in Puzhal prison, a 1,046-year-old rare stone idol of Narasimhee, is back in Tamil Nadu from the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra, Australia.
The idol was stolen in 2002, along with five other idols, but the case was registered only in 2015 by the idol wing of Economic Offence Wing, because till then the theft was not reported. The police became aware of the instance of theft when one of the accused in another idol smuggling case confessed about the particular case.
Later EOW submitted all documents to the Australian agencies and NGA, which purchased the antique item from Subhash Kapoor’s Manhattan-based Art of the Past gallery for US $ 2.75 lakh ('1.49 crore) in year 2005, agreed to send it back to India. The idols weighing 210 kg were sent to Delhi by Australian authorities and idol wing had brought it to Tamil Nadu.
“Most of the antique idols are shipped abroad using forged documents. After drugs, art and antique smuggling give the highest profit margin,” noted Prateep V, Philip, additional director general of police, Economic Offence Wing on Friday. And once these idols are detected in galleries abroad, a lot of diplomacy is involved in the retrieving the idols back, he noted while answering a question why there is a delay in bringing back the idols, ADGP added.
According to the inspector general of police, AG Pon Manickavel, idol wing, the repatriated idol required to be produced before Virudhachalam judicial magistrate court and would be kept in the Nagaswaraswamy icon centre in Kumbakonam for safe keeping.
Of the total six idols stolen in 2002, theft about the Ardhanareeswarar idol was reported in 2013. The idol was brought back in 2016 by the idol wing.
The other four idols of Jnanasakthi, Itchasakthi, Kriyasakthi and Vinayakar - of this particular batch is still abroad.
Apart from Subash Kapoor, Vallabh Prakash, Aditya Prakash of Mumbai and Lakshminarasimhan of Mahabalipuram were also listed as accused in the theft case Narasimhee.
Police say that the suspect used to take all the stolen idols to Mumbai to New York, where Kapoor had his gallery via Hong Kong-London route.
