Puri: At least 45 silver ingots from Emar mutt here were taken to the district treasury Saturday.
The Endowment department had found these silver ingots in 2010 and left them in the possession of Emar mutt pontiff Ramanuja Das, sources said.
“The silver bricks had been buried in a room of the mutt. Each ingot is weighing around 30 kg,” said an official of the Endowment department.
Puri Collector Samarth Verma said the mutt authorities had asked the administration to keep the silver ingots in the district treasury.
Das, however, claimed that the administration forced him to part with the ingots.
Notably, the officials of the Endowment department had found 522 silver ingots weighing about 18 tonnes from Emar mutt in 2011.
The huge stock of ingots was discovered from wooden containers placed inside a room that was closed from all sides by brick walls.
