Burglars struck at an ancient Adhi Rathineeswarar temple in Thiruvadanai and decamped with four idols, which are more than a century-old, two tridents and a spear on Sunday night.

The theft has taken place at a time when the Ramanathapuram Samasthana Devasthanam, which maintained and administered the temple, was making arrangements for kumbabishekam on June 29.

Police said the burglars, at least three, gained entry into the temple by scaling the scaffolding erected for painting the Rajagopuram.

After cutting the chain and breaking open the ‘Karuvoolam’, near the Swami Sannathi, they decamped with idols of Lord Muruga (57 cm), Vinayagar (66 cm), Chandrasekar (69 cm) and Bavani Amman (56.5 cm), police said.

They have also stolen two tridents of Asthiradevi (49 cm) and Soolapidari Amman (39.5 cm) and a 5-foot- long copper spear held by Lord Muruga. The burglary came to light when the watchman visited the temple around 6 am on Monday.

Police pressed into service sniffer dogs and fingerprint experts. Hours after launching an investigation, police recovered the spear, which was abandoned in a field four km from the temple, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Thiruvadanai) Sekar said. Two special teams, headed by Inspectors of police of Thiruvadanai and Thondi, have been formed to detect the crime, he said.

V. Mahendran, Diwan and Administrative secretary of the Devasthanam, who lodged a police complaint, said the idols were certified as bronze by the Archaeological department. Though they were bronze idols, they were priceless for their antiquity, he said.