A special team of the Idol Wing CID arrested four persons and retrieved five bronze idols of Arulmighu Adhinatha Perumal Ranganayaki Ammal temple in Dindigul district.
According to officials, the main accused Prabhakaran threatened the temple staff at knife point on May 21 last year and stole the idols.
A senior official said the statues were made in an idol manufacturing unit in Swamimalai from the contributions made by the devotees to replace the five old idols for the temple.
The staff of the temple did not file a complaint . However, the Idol Wing CID DGP Jayanth Murali got wind of the gang planning to sell them by fixing the rate at ₹12 crore.
A special police team headed by Additional Superintendent of Police Malaichamy carried out an undercover operation posing as customers. The main accused initially refused to show the idols suspecting them to be a police team. On Thursday, after a lot of convincing, the accused showed the idols which were immediately seized.
The team arrested Prabhakaran, R. Ilavarasan, G. Paulraj and M. Dinesh Kumar, all from Dindigul district. They are looking for the remaining two accused who are absconding.
The team retrieved the idols of Perumal, Sreedevi, Bhudevi, Chandrasekara and Parvati.
