Idols found, Jains thank cops

Kolkata: With praises showering from all around, it was an ideal reception for the Kolkata Police.
The Jain community in the city felicitated the Commissioner of Police with some other officers on Sunday for tracing the two idols that had gone missing from a Jain temple in Burrabazar in February.

The officers were honoured with flowers and tikas, with the Kolkata Police being adjudged the “best in the country”, and even being “as good as the Scotland Yard”.

On February 9, two idols - of Astadhatu and Lord Shantinath (made of silver) - had gone missing from the Shree Neminath Digamber Jain Temple in Posta.

The incident led the members of the community to take out processions, demanding action against the culprits. They also submitted a memorandum to various authorities, urging that the idols be recovered at the earliest.

During this period, as a protest, no idols were kept in the temple by the members of the community.

On March 5, the police recovered the idols from one of the employees associated with the temple.

At the felicitation ceremony, the representatives of the community spoke in glowing terms about the police’s swift action. They also recalled the other instance when the police had recovered three idols in 1994 - they went missing from the Shantinath Digamber Jain Mandir in Kakurgachi. The idols were recovered within a month from a pond in Baruipur.

However, they also reminded the cops that the idol of Lord Parswanath (the 23rd Tirthankara), which went missing from the Shri Parswanath Digamber Jain Mandir in Alipore, has not been found yet.

Expressing satisfaction on the recovery of the idols, Commissioner of Police Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti said, “We will try to find the idol stolen from the Alipore temple as quickly as possible.”