The accused in the silver bricks theft. Picture by Sarat Patra

Bhubaneswar, March 23: Seven persons, including the mahant of the Emar Mutt in Puri, were arrested today for stealing silver bricks worth crores from the mutt.

Acting on a tip-off at different places in Cuttack and Puri, police have also recovered 3.40 quintals of silver ingots worth of Rs 3 crore, two four-wheelers and one two-wheeler.

“Mahant Rajgopal Ramanuj Das was the pivot of the racket. They confessed to the crime,” said Puri superintendent of police Sanjay Kumar.

The theft of silver bricks from the mutt’s treasure had come to light following the arrest of two labourers — Barun Nayak and Akshya Nayak — on February 25 from Dhenkanal. They were charged with stealing silver bricks worth Rs 26 lakh. On February 26, police raided the mutt and unearthed 522 sliver bricks each weighing nearly 35kg to 38kg. The bricks were more than 150 years old. An empty box, found on the premises, led to police believe that the bricks were being taken away from there on the sly.

The police then constituted a special team under DSP Raj Kishore Paikray. During the probe, the police came to know that 37 pieces of sliver ingots, weighing around 1.3 tonne, had been sold to one Ganesh Jewllery in Puri against around 16kg of gold worth Rs 3.2 crore.

Police said the mahant had come to know about the treasure trove when the state archeological survey had undertaken repair work in the mutt in 2010. However, when the state endowment department was preparing the inventory of assets of these institutions, he held back information about the treasure.