Acclaimed sculptor M. Muthiah Stapathi has approached the Madras High Court seeking anticipatory bail in a case booked against him by the Idol Wing-Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on July 23 on charges of stealing an “ancient” idol of a peacock from the Kapaleeswarar Temple in Mylapore here.
Justices R. Mahadevan and P.D. Audikesavalu recorded the undertaking of Idol Wing-CID officials that they will not arrest him for four weeks and directed the Registry to post the petition along with a similar plea made by industrialist Venu Srinivasan who had been arraigned as the first suspect in the case.
The police had booked an FIR in connection with the alleged crime on the basis of a complaint lodged by P.R. Narasimhan, a staunch follower of Vaishnavite principles, of Srirangam in Tiruchi district. The complainant had been a whistleblower in quite a few idol theft cases.
According to his complaint, the ancient idol of a peacock with flowers in its beak in the sannidhi in Kapaleeswarar Temple had been replaced with a peacock holding a snake in its mouth.
The complainant claimed that the replacement had occurred just a day before the Mahasamprokshanam (consecration) of the temple in 2004. No one had dared to bring this to light, he added.
He sought appropriate action with regard to the alleged replacement. Acting on the basis of his complaint, the police registered the FIR against the two advance bail petitioners and a few others.
‘Only offered opinion’
Refuting the allegations, the sculptor, in his anticipatory bail petition, said the temple itself was constructed only in 1909, and prior to that, the idols of the temple were housed near the Santhome church. Stating that his medium of work was only stone, he said that he gave opinion only with respect to stone idols.
He recalled to have once told the temple authorities that the idol of Raaghu in the Navagraha sannidhi in the temple did not have the body of a snake and advised them to make good the said deficiency.
“After giving the opinion, I have no clue about its compliance. For every itch, scratch, and snag in a temple, the petitioner cannot be blamed,” his petition read.
