Idols do the vanishing act

SURAT, July 14: For close to 1,000 years, 120 statuettes had stood silently in the Digambar Jain dehrasar, protected by eight padlocked d...

SURAT, July 14: For close to 1,000 years, 120 statuettes had stood silently in the Digambar Jain dehrasar, protected by eight padlocked doors. Then, as silently, 30 of them disappeared during the early hours of June 29. It was then that the police raised a hue and cry but so far they haven8217;t had much to show for it.

Two factors, however, indicate that it was no casual act of vandalism. One, the 30 stolen statuettes were the oldest of the lot. And two, barely three months ago, the German wife of an NRI Jain had photographed these very statues 8212; along with several others in other dehrasars in the city 8212; supposedly for her doctoral thesis on Jainism.

Most of the statuettes were registered with the Archaeological Survey of India. They were made either of gold, silver or panchdhaatu, an alloy that has gold as the principal metal.

Says Hitendra Chudawala, a trustee of the ravaged Old Adheshwar Jain Dehrasar in the Khapatia Chakla area of the walled city, 8220;I see a definite plan to steal antique idols from the Jain temples of the city. The monetary value of the stolen idols is immaterial. It8217;s their antiquity that makes them priceless.8221;

And while the German woman photographed the idols with the permission of religious leaders and trustees, Chudawala, for one, is not ruling out a connection between the photography and the burglary. 8220;That is a definite link8221;, he says.

Adds Ramesh Shah, another trustee of the dehrasar, 8220;Three things leap to the eye: first, the photography angle; two, the knowledge angle, since the larger, more modern idols were not touched; and three, that the antique, not the monetary, value was the overriding consideration.8221;

Talking to Express Newsline, Shah demands that specialised agencies like the Criminal Investigation Department or the Central Bureau of Investigation probe the case to check if this was part of a large smuggling conspiracy.

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Athwalines police station PI Gopal Darji, however dismisses the theory. 8220;This could be the handiwork of specialised temple burglars, who sell the idols at throwaway prices8221;, he says. However, he admits they have not been able to establish any links with recent temple thefts.

While the case still in charge of the city police, they have informed the CID, the city8217;s Detection of Crime Branch and other Intelligence agencies of the stolen goods and the German connection. Though wireless descriptions of the idols have been sent out, and efforts are on to trace the German woman, no suspects have been named so far.