Idols, valuables worth a crore stolen from temple in Dankaur

Greater Noida: Unidentified robbers stole four idols of various deities and other valuables – both believed to be worth a crore – from a Jain temple in Dankaur area of Greater Noida, police said on Monday.

Sources in Greater Noida police claimed that the robbers broke the door late at night and stole the valuables.

According to police, the incident took place at Adinath Digamber Jain temple in Dankaur area late Sunday night. The culprits stole idols each of Aadinath Digambar Jain Maharaj, God Muni Suvrat, Parshvnath and Chandraprabha, all of which were made of eight precious stones.

"We received the information at around 6.40 am, when the priest saw that the front gate along with another gate and an iron slide were molded, while the idols were missing from the temple and immediately informed police," said Rajpal Singh Tomar, station house officer (SHO), Dankaur police station.

Pramod Kumar Jain, a priest at the temple, said that Sunday's robbery was the third attempt of theft in the last 20 years. However, on all the previous occasions, the police had successfully recovered the idols and returned them to the temple.

"The idols were established at the time when the temple was built in 1988. They were placed by all the followers of the temple and they are worth of crores of rupees," Jain added.

He further said that the idols also had heavy thrones, on which the deities were made to sit and they are an integral part of the idol.

Meanwhile, police are scanning footage of CCTV camera in the neighborhood, which revealed that an unidentified Hyundai Santro car had stopped near the temple at around 1.38 am and stayed till 2.27 am.

"We have taken the fingerprints from the temple, recovery and the arrests will be made soon," the SHO added.