Report sought on plea about 41 missing case diaries relating to idol thefts

The Hindu: Chennai: Wednesday, 26 February 2020.

PIL favours constitution of a team under retired police officer to prosecute those responsible

The Madras High Court on Tuesday sought the response of the State government as well as the Idol Wing-Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on a complaint of as many as 41 case diaries relating to various idol theft cases registered across the State having gone missing mysteriously.

Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and R. Hemalatha called for a report following a public interest litigation petition filed by advocate ‘Elephant’ G. Rajendran seeking the constitution of a team headed by a retired police officer to prosecute politicians, police officers and others responsible for the missing case diaries.

Relying upon information obtained by him under the Right to Information Act of 2005 when retired Inspector General of Police (IGP) A.G. Ponn Manickavel was heading the Idol Wing CID in March 2018, the advocate asserted that as many as 41 case diaries had been either stolen or gone missing. He pointed out that in reply to his queries under the RTI Act, the police department had conceded that three files relating to idol thefts reported in Tiruvannamalai district, 12 from Tiruvallur and five from Cuddalore falling under the North Zone of department could not be located and had gone missing.

Similarly, two each from Salem and Dharmapuri districts and one each from Krishnagiri, Erode and Namakkal falling under the West Zone had gone missing. In the South Zone too, three case diaries from Ramnathapuram district, two from Tirunelvei and one each from Theni and Thoothukudi were missing.

The highest number of seven case diaries from Perambalur district followed by six from Nagapattinam district had been reported in the Central Zone of the police department, the RTI reply stated. Wondering how case diaries that contain details of investigation could go missing, the litigant urged the court to take serious note of the issue.

He also suspected that the case diaries could have been stolen by police officials themselves at the behest of some politicians and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department officials who were hand in glove with the idol theft offenders and insisted that a retired police official must be appointed to cull out the truth.