22 Idols Stolen From Temple In Odisha, Probe Underway

Khordha: A large theft has taken place in the ancient and historic temple of Sri Sri Dakheswar situated in the middle of Banpur Notified Area Council (NAC) in Khordha district of Odisha.

22 idols have been stolen from the temple. These idols were present in the temple since hundreds of years.

According to the reports, as the priest entered the temple early in the morning to worship, he saw the locks of the main door and the two doors of the sanctum sanctorum were broken. He noticed that out of total 31 statues 22 were missing from the temple.

Among the robbed idols were statues of:  Maa Kanaka Durga, Gopinath Dev, Kaliyugeswar Dev and Chandrasekhar Dev.

The priest immediately informed about the major theft to the temple committee members. The committee members then informed about the theft to the Banpur Police.

Banpur IIC Sanjay Patnaik immediately arrived  at the spot along with his team and initiated the investigation. Meanwhile, higher officials of the scientific team arrived at the spot and investigated the incident.

Currently, Sub-Inspector Bijay Mallik, Raj Kishor Behera, ASI Basant Patnaik, Namita Nayak and other police officers are investigating the incident.

It has also come to notice that such incident has also taken place earlier twice from same temple.

However, locals have alleged that such incidents are frequent due to the negligence of the Committee members of the temple and the Archaeological Survey of India.