A millennium-old Bhagwan Murugan’s murti which went missing from a village in Tamil Nadu has been traced to the US and is in possession of Homeland Security. The smuggled murti belongs to a Shiva temple which was destroyed by the invading forces of Malik Kafur and the Mughals.
The Tamil Nadu Idol Wing police have traced a 7th-century murti of Bhagwan Murugan(Skanda) which went missing in the period of 1999-2000. It belongs to the Shri Amirdakadeswarar temple in Thatchur, Kallidaikurichi. The Pallava-era temple was ravaged during Islamic invasions and was in ruins.
13 stone murtis of presiding deity Amirdakdeshwarar’s Shivling, Brahma, Agni, Chandikeshwar, Varunalingam, Somaskandar, Durga, Jyeshta Devi, Nandi, Padma Devi, Sanganidhi and Murugan were unearthed from the disintegrated temple’s ruins in 1998. Among them, the murti of Bhagwan Murugan went missing around 1999-2000 and villagers considering it a bad omen didn’t try to find it.
As TN Idol Wing is tracing and bringing back long-lost murtis from different parts of the state, on hearing about the recovery of 3 such to the Adi Keshava Perumal temple in the neighbouring village, locals filed a complaint about the stolen murti in hopes of finding it.
Periyasamy Udayar, a former panchayat president of Thatchur filed the complaint which states, “During the invasions of Malik Kafur and other Mughal emperors, the temple was plundered and destroyed. A total of 13 idols remained and they were buried in the ground. In 1998, these idols were unearthed and people started worshipping them. In 2000, an idol of Lord Murugan was stolen. Though 23 years have passed, nobody has lodged a complaint”.
As the complaint was filed after a long time, records of the temple and murtis were scarce to find. However, cops came to know that a magazine named ‘Thadayam’ published pictures and details about the ruined temple. They found a copy of the magazine and searched the websites of museums and art galleries abroad to find a match. Their investigation led to a list of confiscated murtis by Homeland Security Investigations(HSI) of the USA where they found the exact match.
The idol wing is planning to get the list of confiscated items from HSI and request the government to initiate the process to repatriate the murti. Idol Wing ADGP Shailesh Kumar Yadav informed media that, “Action will be taken to retrieve the stone idol of Lord Murugan by filing a request under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the U.S. through the Union Ministries of Home and External Affairs.”
