Chennai: An idol of a peacock, considered to be Goddess Karpagambal, who performed puja for Lord Kapaleeswarar under a ‘punnai’ tree in Mylapore in the city, has allegedly gone missing from the Kapaleeswarar temple here.
Officials of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department are conducting an inquiry into an allegation by a section of devotees that a stone idol of the peacock inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Sri Punnaivananathar shrine was replaced in 2004 since it was damaged.
“It was supposedly replaced overnight. But there is no proof of the replacement. The original idol too cannot be located,” said a source in the department.
The issue came to light after an RTI activist mentioned it in an affidavit in the court. The department then asked temple authorities to conduct an inquiry.
The executive officer of the temple, D Kaveri says, “A criminal original petition has been filed by Rangarajan Narasimhan from Trichy wherein he states that the idol is missing. Different views are being presented by various groups of devotees. But everyone agrees that the idol was changed in 2004. However there are conflicting views on the location of the old idol.”
A devotee who has been serving the temple for more than two decades says that there is no way that the idol could have gone missing for there are certain rules that need to be followed when an idol is replaced. It is possible that the old idol could have been buried.