10-09-2005, 05:22 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Idols stolen 20 yrs ago returned </b>
Vijay Upadhyay/ Firozabad -Pioneer
Call it blind faith or a series of fateful incidents, that is making the people of Darapur and Mehri villages in Firozabad district ecstatic with joy this Navratra festival.
The reason for this is the reappearance of Kul Devi idols in the village temple after 20 years and the discovery of a note from the thieves claiming that stealing these idols had destroyed them and they were returning the idols to their original place.
According to the village pradhan, Triloki Nath, these idols, known as Darapur Mehri Devi had been discovered about 70 years back in the fields outside the village, where the temple today stands. The idols were stolen from the temple in 1984 and two brothers Anantram & Gangaram from a nearby village Laturra were accused of theft, though they could not be arrested due to lack of evidence.
According to Nath, the brothers did not live long after they were accused of stealing the idols and while Gangaram was knocked down by a moving train, the second one died a few years back in Delhi. Though the idols remained missing and when all efforts to relocate the Kul Devi idols were wasted, the villagers installed a modern Durga idol in the temple and continued to worship despite facing hardships.
On Wednesday, the idols suddenly appeared on a platform built around the temple and along with them the villagers found a handwritten letter from the thieves who had stolen these idols 20 years back, in which, they have confessed their crime. Pleading guilty in the note, the thieves had claimed that ever since they stole the idols, they had faced several disasters in their lives. One of them had gone insane, while the other had been blinded. Even when they tried to sell off the idols to smugglers, they always returned to them and fearing that they had committed an unforgivable crime by stealing these idols, they were returning them back to their original place, pleading for forgiveness.
When The Pioneer visited Darapur village on Saturday, the atmosphere was filled with religious chanting and bhajans with the idols being formally reinstalled in the temple amidst a huge ceremony with almost 3000 villagers participating.
According to Tundla Police Station in-charge<b> Baldhari Singh, the reappearance of these idols was a mischief of some local villager, who had been hiding these idols in his home and when his attempts to sell these idols failed,</b> he returned them to the temple along with the letter.
<b>An Archaeological Survey of India official in Agra said that the artifact that had appeared in the temple was apparently a piece of a large ornamental plaque that had probably been a part of a temple pillar during the Chandela dynasty in the 9the - 11the century AD. </b>
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Vijay Upadhyay/ Firozabad -Pioneer
Call it blind faith or a series of fateful incidents, that is making the people of Darapur and Mehri villages in Firozabad district ecstatic with joy this Navratra festival.
The reason for this is the reappearance of Kul Devi idols in the village temple after 20 years and the discovery of a note from the thieves claiming that stealing these idols had destroyed them and they were returning the idols to their original place.
According to the village pradhan, Triloki Nath, these idols, known as Darapur Mehri Devi had been discovered about 70 years back in the fields outside the village, where the temple today stands. The idols were stolen from the temple in 1984 and two brothers Anantram & Gangaram from a nearby village Laturra were accused of theft, though they could not be arrested due to lack of evidence.
According to Nath, the brothers did not live long after they were accused of stealing the idols and while Gangaram was knocked down by a moving train, the second one died a few years back in Delhi. Though the idols remained missing and when all efforts to relocate the Kul Devi idols were wasted, the villagers installed a modern Durga idol in the temple and continued to worship despite facing hardships.
On Wednesday, the idols suddenly appeared on a platform built around the temple and along with them the villagers found a handwritten letter from the thieves who had stolen these idols 20 years back, in which, they have confessed their crime. Pleading guilty in the note, the thieves had claimed that ever since they stole the idols, they had faced several disasters in their lives. One of them had gone insane, while the other had been blinded. Even when they tried to sell off the idols to smugglers, they always returned to them and fearing that they had committed an unforgivable crime by stealing these idols, they were returning them back to their original place, pleading for forgiveness.
When The Pioneer visited Darapur village on Saturday, the atmosphere was filled with religious chanting and bhajans with the idols being formally reinstalled in the temple amidst a huge ceremony with almost 3000 villagers participating.
According to Tundla Police Station in-charge<b> Baldhari Singh, the reappearance of these idols was a mischief of some local villager, who had been hiding these idols in his home and when his attempts to sell these idols failed,</b> he returned them to the temple along with the letter.
<b>An Archaeological Survey of India official in Agra said that the artifact that had appeared in the temple was apparently a piece of a large ornamental plaque that had probably been a part of a temple pillar during the Chandela dynasty in the 9the - 11the century AD. </b>
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