Pipili: In a crackdown Wednesday afternoon, a man was arrested in connection with alleged theft of five antique brass idols from the Gopinathdev temple at Kakudia under Pipili police limits in Puri.
According to police sources, the accused was identified as 29-year-old Bapuni Padhi of Chhenapadi area under Anandapur police limits in Keonjhar district. Bapuni and his accomplices had allegedly barged into the 13th-century temple here January 30 and 31 this year.
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The miscreants later decamped with the five metallic idols on the intervening nights. The temple servitor Janardan Dixit found the gate locks broken January 31 morning and the idols of Vishnu, Lakshmi, Krishna, Radha and Garuda missing, a police official expressed.
Acting on an FIR earlier lodged by Dixit, Pipili police had registered a case and launched a probe in this connection. During investigation, inspector S Beuria of Special Task Force (STF) of the State Crime Branch cracked the theft case leading to arrest of one accused.
Bapuni was arrested from Patrapada area in Bhubaneswar and other accused persons will be apprehended soon, the police official said.
PNN
