Stolen Thirumangai Alwar Bronze Idol Repatriated from UK, Presented in Chennai

An antique bronze statue of Thirumangai Alwar, stolen from the Sri Soundararaja Perumal Temple at Kumbakonam decades ago, was brought to Chennai by the Tamil Nadu Idol Wing-CID after being repatriated from the United Kingdom.

A team of Idol Wing-CID officers retrieved the idol from the Archaeological Survey of India in New Delhi, which received the bronze on August 6. The team presented the recovered statue in Chennai before Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay, in the presence of Director-General of Police Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal and Additional Director-General of Police Kalpana Nayak.

The statue had been traced to the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, which acquired it in 1967 from an unidentified seller. The recovery followed a case registered on February 12, 2020, on a complaint by the temple's executive officer regarding the theft of four idols between 1957 and 1967. The missing items included the Thirumangai Alwar bronze and metal idols of Kaalinga Narthana Krishnar, Vishnu, and Sridevi.

ADGP Kalpana Nayak said investigators gathered scientific provenance evidence proving the idols originated from the temple and had been smuggled abroad. After a museum representative conducted due diligence on the Idol Wing's report, the university council acknowledged the idol had been illegally removed.

In 2024, the university committed to returning the idol. The Tamil Nadu government subsequently prepared a replica of the statue to hand over to the Ashmolean Museum as part of the repatriation process.

Following its presentation in Chennai, the Thirumangai Alwar idol was handed over to temple custodians at the Kumbakonam court on Tuesday and taken back to the temple in a procession. The other three stolen idols have been traced to museums in the United States.