Police on Saturday arrested four individuals in connection with the theft of the gold crown from the Jeshoreshwari Kali Temple in the Shyamnagar upazila of Satkhira.
The identities of the arrested individual are yet to be disclosed.
Earlier in the day, the temple's priest, Jyoti Prakash Chattopadhyay, filed a case at Shyamnagar police station in this connection.
Satkhira Superintendent of Police Md Monirul Islam has directed the District Detective Branch (DB) to investigate the case.
He said: “So far, four people have been arrested.”
Meanwhile, two days have passed since the incident, but the crown has not been recovered, leading to increasing frustration among local residents. No worship has taken place at the temple since the theft.
The Jeshoreshwari Kali Temple is one of the 52 piṭhas in Sanatan Hinduism.
On March 27, 2021, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the temple and personally placed the golden crown on the head of the Kali idol.
The crown was stolen on Thursday around 2:45pm.
According to local sources, after the daily worship on Thursday afternoon, the priest, Dilip Kumar Banerjee, handed over the keys to the temple's priestess, Rekha Rani Sarkar, and went home.
At that time, Rekha Sarkar and several devotees were present in the temple courtyard.
Shortly after, the gold crown of the Kali idol was stolen.
Footage from the CCTV cameras at the temple shows a young man, approximately 24-25 years old, entering the temple at 2:49pm.
He entered the temple casually, stood behind the Kali idol, and quickly removed the crown, hiding it in his T-shirt.
The young man, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, appeared to observe whether anyone was around before taking the crown but did not seem disturbed at all.
The entire incident occurred within 10-12 seconds, as can be seen from the video footage.
Local residents believe that the young man was well-trained and acted according to a plan while stealing the crown.
