With Tamil Nadu being home to over 40,000 temples, many of them ancient ones, in addition to a large number of devotees and tourists thronging them, the State has also witnessed smugglers of antiquities targeting the numerous idols that adorn places of worship. Many stolen idols have made their way into the network of international antiquities dealers as well as museums in foreign countries. Retrieving them is an ongoing process that continues to be a challenge, despite its numerous successes.
While initially, the police pursued cases of stolen idols in addition to other crimes, after the murder of at least six temple watchmen in the late 1970s and the theft of artefacts, a separate wing was set up in 1980 by then Deputy Inspector General of Police K.K. Rajasekaran Nair to go after smugglers of antique goods. Subsequently, a separate squad headed by a Superintendent of Police to deal with idol theft cases was formed under the Crime Branch-CID in 1983. In 1985, the Idol Wing of the Tamil Nadu police was tasked with investigating cases of theft and smuggling of idols that were over a century old and had a market value upwards of ₹5 lakh.
The arrest of New York-based international antiquities dealer Subash Chandra Kapoor by Interpol in 2011, and his subsequent extradition to India and imprisonment in Tamil Nadu as an under-trial, thrust the Idol Wing into the limelight.
