3 months ago
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A Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing an alleged theft of golden astatine the Sabarimala Ayyappa temple started illustration postulation for technological investigation present connected Thursday, constabulary sources said.
The team, led by Superintendent of Police S. Sasidharan, reached Pampa successful the greeting and aboriginal proceeded to the Sannidhanam by afternoon, officials said.
Officials said the SIT, assisted by unit from the Legal Metrology department, forensic laboratory, and skilled artisans, began removing the gold-plated covering from artefacts successful the sanctum sanctorum and its pillars successful the evening.
Monthly puja
According to the constabulary sources, the illustration postulation process started aft the Sabarimala temple opened for the monthly puja astatine 5 p.m. connected Thursday.
The SIT is expected to implicit the process connected Friday. The SIT decided to cod caller samples for technological investigation aft being granted support by the Kerala High Court connected Monday.
The SIT is probing 2 cases related to the alleged theft of golden from the Dwarapalaka (guardian deity) idol and the doorway frames of the sanctum sanctorum.
The bureau had submitted earlier the High Court that precocious technological investigation was indispensable to establish, with precision and objectivity, the grade of worldly alteration, the quality of metallurgical manipulation, and the quantum of golden primitively contiguous and subsequently depleted.
It had projected to behaviour X-ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy (XRF) to find aboveground elemental composition, Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) for ultra-trace impurity and elemental profiling, and Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) to analyse alloy creation and metallurgical uniformity.
The SIT had informed the tribunal that it had approached premier nationalist probe institutions and laboratories, including the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre successful Mumbai, National Metallurgical Laboratory successful Jamshedpur, and the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory successful Hyderabad to undertake the specialised tests.
The SIT had collected akin samples past twelvemonth for investigation astatine the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, but specified facilities were not disposable there.
While granting permission, the tribunal had observed that allegations involving the removal and substitution of precious golden cladding from the beatified temple onslaught astatine the precise sanctity of the temple and cannot remainder solely connected testimonial assertions oregon documentary records, which whitethorn beryllium susceptible to omission, manipulation oregon interpretative dispute.
The tribunal had said it was satisfied that precocious forensic and metallurgical introspection was perfectly indispensable and that the results would signifier the bedrock of the prosecution’s case.
The tribunal has directed the SIT to record a study connected February 19, updating it connected the samples collected from the Sabarimala temple and the agencies to which they were sent for technological analysis.
