A group of around six masked people broke open the lock and damaged the idols with hammers

COIMBATORE: Miscreants entered a shrine related to Ponkaliamman temple at Thalaiyanallur near Sivagiri in Erode district of Tamil Nadu in the early hours of Monday and damaged two idols .

The temple belongs to a community in the area and after the incident, members of the community staged a protest.

The Erode police secured three people on suspicion and were on the lookout for others based on a CCTV footage from the temple. The police said they were also on the lookout for a man who had raised an issue against installing the idols. The idols were installed last month.

According to sources, the Ponkaliyamman is the deity of one particular community in the region. The shrine in contention belongs to Ponkaliyamman temple and houses idols of the forebears of the community. It is situated around 1km from the Ponkaliyamman temple.

After the day’s rituals, the shrine was locked on Sunday night. On the intervening night of Sunday and Monday, a group of around six masked people broke open the lock and damaged the idols with hammers.

A priest opened the shrine in the morning and found the idols damaged. He alerted the temple authorities who called the police.

S Suryamoorthy, one of the temple’s representatives, said the shrine was a very old one and was earlier situated close to the road. “We moved the shrine a bit away from the road, renovated it and installed new idols last month. A few members from another community raised an issue and petitioned the collector and revenue officials against this. But officials said we had the rights to install idols and the matter was settled then. Now the people have done this to cause unrest,” he said.

The two communities were now living in harmony in the region and only a few people from the other community were seeking to cause trouble, he added.

Following this, the members of the community related to the temple staged a protest near the shrine. Police intervened and assured action, so they dispersed. They filed a complaint against Nagaraj from Kottaikattur near Sivagiri and his group of people, who had caused an issue earlier.

