This comes across as a shocker. The Tamil Nadu state’s idol wing police have arrested senior director cum producer V Sekar for allegedly stealing panchaloha idols worth Rs. 80 crore in the international market. The police have recovered eight panchaloha idols stolen from three temples. Police investigation found out that the 63 year old filmmaker took to idol smuggling to cover his losses suffered in a 2014 film that starred his son Karl Marx. The police caught the filmmaker redhanded while he was negotiating with smugglers to sell them in the international market.
The senior filmmaker directed and produced 15 superhit films like Kaalam Maari Pochu and Varavu Ettana Selavu Pathana etc, starring several noted stars of Tamil and Telugu film industry. Sekar’s films were a huge hit with the middle class audiences. “I feel ashamed now, especially as I tried to sell our cultural heritage to criminals,” said the filmmaker during his interrogation.
The police first arrested Sekar’s former production manager Dhanalingam on charges of stealing an idol in January and kept Sekar on vigil since then. The Tamil Nadu police had set up the idol wing after hundreds of antique panchaloha idols were stolen in the past two decades and smuggled to museums in foreign countries like Australia, US and Europe etc.
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