Police recovered a brass-made idol of Santoshi Maa from the residence of a bulldozer driver at Rajarbagh area in Udaipur under Gomati District on Monday.
The idol was found during an excavation drive in Udaipur Jagannath Dighi around seven months ago. A bulldozer driver, Chandan Sarkar who was also engaged in the excavation work took the idol to his house and started to worship the idol daily.
A Police team led by SDPO Dhruba Nath and OC of RK Pur PS Babul Das went to the house of Chandan Sarkar and recovered it.
The matter of the Santoshi Maa idol came to the fore after a Vishnu Idol was found in Jagannath Dighi on Saturday last during an ongoing excavation drive to rejuvenate the historical Jagannath Dighi.
After the recovery of the Vishnu idol, netizens raised the issue of the Santoshi Maa idol which was also recovered during an excavation work in the same Jagannath Dight. Several posts in social media surfaced demanding recovery of the Santoshi Maa idol. Later, Police recovered the idol from Sarkar’s residence and brought it to the Police station.
Meantime, a 16-member delegation of Sanskar Bharati met the DM of the Gomati District on a deputation on Monday and submitted a memorandum demanding the preservation of antique items in a proper way.
In view of the recoveries of idols from Jagannath Dighi – which was dug up by King of Tripura Manikya dynasty – the demand for proper preservation of the ancient items is important. The preservation matter became more important in view of recovery of the Santoshi Maa idol from one’s residence.
Lack of proper preservation was evident from the fact that after finding Santoshi Maa idol – Chandan Sarkar could manage to take it away whereas the idol was supposed to be kept by the administration for public interest.