Nayagarh: In a major crackdown, Nayagarh police have arrested four persons for their alleged involvement in two high-profile cases of temple thefts that took place in the district last month. The gang was reportedly operating in various districts across the State.

The accused were identified as Susanta Karmi (27) from Kantamal in Boudh, Laxminarayan Nayak (34) and Sahil Patra (26) from Subarnapur and Gourahari Mohanty (42) from Brahmanipada in Nayagarh. They were nabbed following a complaint by Subash Barada, manager of Jagannath temple and supervisor, Debottar (Nayagarh).  

Police have recovered 32 gm of gold and 1500 gm of silver ornaments used for the deities, along with 34 kg of brass and bronze utensils, Rs 40,000 cash among other items used for the crime. 
They informed that two separate cases were registered on February 20 and March 1, respectively. 

As per the complaint, the first theft had taken place at the Jagannath temple on the intervening night of February 19 and 20  between 1 am and 2.30 am where the miscreants had looted silver ornaments of  deities Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra along with money to the tune of around Rs 50,000 from the Hundi (donation box). 

Barely a week later, the second theft took place at the Gopinath Temple, Nayagarh on February 28 where the accused looted 12 to15 ornaments of the deity and Rs 1000 from the Hundi, following which the complainant reached out to the police and a special squad was formed under guidance of Nayagarh SP. 

Acting on the complaint, the team led by Inspector Rasmi Ranjan Mohapatra and supervised by Nayagarh SDPO Jyoti Ranjan Samantaray carried out a joint raid in Nayagarh and other districts and nabbed the accused after examining CCTV footage and the photos collected from the AI cameras installed in different localities. 

Addressing mediapersons, police said the gang's modus operandi was watching temple related blogs on social media platforms to get details of entry and exit among other details, after which one member from the group used to carry out the burglary after locating their target temples on google map. 

"All the accused were involved in series of temple burglary cases across six districts in the State including Kandhamal, Subarnapur, Khordha, Nayagarh, Boudh and Angul.  Karmi was booked in 11 cases while Nayak has three cases against his name, " informed Nayagarh SP S Susree.