Unidentified persons have stolen 10 panchaloha idols from a cave temple in Malamanjunur Pudur village near Tiruvannamalai town.
The police said the Chitrapadaiyar Eshwar cave temple in the village, located around 35 km from Tiruvannamalai town along Jawadhu Hills, had three idols of god Eshwar, two of goddess Eshwari and five of Veerabhadra Swamy.
Among the Veerabhadra Swamy idols, four weighed 3 kg each while one, donated by a local devotee N. Ramaswamy in 2019, weighed 1.25 kg. The other five idols weighed 5 kg each. All the idols measured around one feet in height. Except for the 2019 one, the village residents have preserved the idols in the open cave temple over many generations.