Massive gold loot in Sabarimala? There's more to it than meets the eye

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Special Investigation Team received information that the ceremonial vessels installed as sacred as the deity on top of the sanctum sanctorum in the Sabarimala temple were removed and taken to Pamba on the pretext of repairing and miniaturising them.

The three vessels above the shrine, the domes of the Kannimoola Ganapathi and Nagaraja sub-shrines, the door of the shrine, and the Dwarapalaka sculptures on the sides were covered in gold layers sponsored by business tycoon Vijay Mallya. Mallya had also covered the roof of the shrine and the walls on both sides with gold plaques inscribed with Ayyappa’s legend.

It is suspected that the precious small idols, including the Shaiva and Vaishnava forms in the shrine, and the gold in the sub-deities (Upadevas) were smuggled. The SIT will investigate whether more gold was looted from the temple shrine.

Even before businessman Vijay Mallya sponsored gold coating on the shrine in 1998, the layers around the shrine were covered in pure gold. The Prabhamandalam, which contains the Shiva and the Vyali roopams, weigh about a hundred kilograms. There is no estimate of the quantity of gold in these layers. The Thiruvabharanam register, which contained this information, was destroyed.

It remains to be seen how much of the 30.3 kg of gold plating that Vijay Mallya sponsored on the shrine is left. In addition to the two layers inscribed with the ten avatars attached to the door of the shrine, two layers with zodiac signs, the layer on the upper floor of the door, and the seven layers of the Prabhamandalam were also taken to Smart Creations in Chennai.

All of these were polished several times before the Dwarapalaka sculptures were removed in 2019. After removing the previous copper plates and the roof planks in the shrine, a new teak plank was fixed, and a new layer of copper was applied on top of it. The gold plating was applied to the copper plates using mercury, which is thinner than paper.

👉 The SIT report submitted to the court states that 42.1 kg of the plates were taken to Chennai Smart Creations, and the gold was separated and made into blocks using a chemical mixture.

👉 Inspection is ongoing to confirm whether it is possible to separate only the gold from the plates weighing several tons with the ten avatars, zodiac signs and Prabhamandalam.

👉 The SIT was pretty much sure from the beginning that almost two kg of gold were looted from the temple. With the Prabhamandalam gold adding to the list, the scale of the theft is likely to increase.