Jajpur: Jajpur police have busted a gang of thieves involved in stealing precious idols of deities from temples. Police have arrested four members of the gang and recovered 31 idols from their possession. While some of the seized idols are made of ‘astadhatu’ others are made of brass.
Police have also seized a gun, a bike and instruments used for committing theft from the gang members, informed Jajpur SP Vineet Agarwal.
The accused have been identified as Arvind Kumar Singh (43), Babar alias Javed (40), Vijay Shukla alias Pandit (51) and Sashidhar Nayak (49), police said.
While Arvind, Javed and Vijay are natives of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Sashidhar is a native of Nilgiri area of Balasore district, police added.
Sashidhar worked as the local informer for the gang, police said. However, the mastermind of the gang is still at large.
Police said that the accused persons had stolen idols from various places in Jajpur district and had planned to sell these idols outside the state.
It is pertinent to mention here that on the intervening night of February 19 and 20 four idols were stolen from the Krushnachandrapur temple under Jenapur police limits.
On February 20, as many as 19 idols were stolen from the Raghunathjew temple under Jajpur Town police limits.
Similarly, idols were stolen from the Siddha Baladevjew temple in Dharmashala area of the district on the intervening night of November 11 and 12 in 2022.
Complaints of idol thefts from different temples were lodged at various police stations of the district. Following the complaints the police had formed a special team to nab the gang of thieves.
