Bhubaneswar, July 15: Mangalore police today arrested the wife and father-in-law of Santosh Das alias Ghanashyam Das, 35, the main accused in the theft of antique idols from a Jain shrine at Moodbidri, about 40km from Mangalore, on July 5 night.

Sources said Digambar Mohanty, the father-in-law of the accused, and Diptimayee Mohanty, 30, his wife, were arrested from their residence at Sailashree Vihar.

Digambar is a fourth class employee of the state housing and urban development department, and Diptimayee is a homemaker. The duo were arrested under Section 411 of the Indian Penal Code (dishonestly receiving stolen property). The police have also seized gold biscuits worth 1 kilogram from their possession.

Police sources said the Mangalore police would produce both of them in court and will take them on transit remand for further investigation. However, Das, who has previous records of stealing idols, is still at large.

Earlier, the Mangalore police had recovered gold worth more than 1 kg, which is believed to have been made by melting some of the stolen idols, and cash worth Rs 2.05 lakh from Digambar’s house. Apart from this, the cops had also seized eight ATM cards, more than 10 bank chequebooks and hundreds of precious stones, including diamonds.

The 15 idols worth hundreds of crores that were stolen from Mangalore included eight that were from the third to fifth century BC and five were cast in gold a century ago. The Mangalore police had also released a sketch of the accused from the CCTV footage in the shrine and information shared by its monks.

“We had got the information from an auto driver about a suspect moving around near the temple,” said an official of the Mangalore police team.

Police sources said Das was involved in a number of cases related to stealing of idols cases in Nepal and various states such as Maharashtra, Bengal, Karnataka, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh.