nA former police officer AG Ponn Manickavel, described as the super cop of Tamil Nadu, is giving sleepless nights to the ruling AIADMK and the Opposition DMK leaders. The entire State administration has been beefed up by the Tamil Nadu Government to make the apex court of the country not to grant any more extension of service to Manickavel and prevent him from pursuing with his probe into the missing antique idols numbering more than 5,000 from the temples of the State.
Ponn Manickavel was the Inspector General of Police, heading the Idol Wing (CID) who was probing the thefts of antique idols from temples in the State administered by the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Department. Idols dating back to thousands of years were stolen from the temples of Tamil Nadu ever since the DMK came to power in 1967. This practice continued despite the change of Government in the State in 1977. “The DMK and the AIADMK indiscriminately plundered the temples and shared the bounty. Leaders of both the parties are rattled by the investigation undertaken by Manickavel,” said T R Ramesh, president, Temple Worshippers Society, who heads the list of litigants fighting to liberate the temples from the shackles of the State administration.
Though Manickavel, on reaching the age of 60, was superannuated from service on November 30, 2018, the Madras High Court by a special order appointed him as Special Officer for one year to probe the idol theft cases. The Tamil Nadu Government wanted him out of the investigation and approached the Supreme Court with a plea challenging the High Court directive. Though the Supreme Court upheld the High Court order, few months time was lost because of the litigation. “Despite the Supreme Court’s verdict, the Tamil Nadu Government created many obstacles to prevent Manickavel from carrying out the investigation. During this period, Manickavel and his team traced and brought back some of the idols which were stored in private museums and from art collectors,” said Ramesh.
The Tamil Nadu Government, which did not provide any office facilities or other infrastructure to Manickavel and his team for the last one year has again approached the apex court with a request for court directive to the officer to hand over the charges to Abhay Kumar Singh, Additional DGP in charge of Idol Wing on November 30 when the former’s tenure comes to an end. The State has prayed the court to issue an order asking Manickavel to hand over the records, idol and artefacts to Singh. A bench consisting of Justices Ashok Bhushan and M R Shah would hear the case on Monday.
Interestingly, the devotees are unanimous in their support for Manickavel. “We want Manickavel to be appointed as officer on special duty for a period of two years so that he could go ahead with the investigation and bring back the stolen idols,” said Parthasarathy, a devotee at Sreerangam. He pointed out that the Dravidian political parties have joined hands together in swindling money and property out of the temples. “ The officials posted in the HR&CE Departments are all rationalists and atheists belonging to the DMK. They are destroying temple properties,” said Parthasarathy.
Ramesh said the Tamil Nadu Government has devised strategies to derail the Madras High Court verdict asking the HR&CE Department to furnish the details of the 50,000 acres of prime real estate property which has gone “missing” from the temples. “Though the verdict was pronounced in February 2018, the Government is yet to come out with the details of the missing temple land,” he said. Both Ramesh and Parthasarathy are confident that if the missing idols are traced by Manickavel, many politicians in the State would end up in jails.