Special security zone around Padmanabhaswamy temple mooted

^{News Courtesy Mathrubhumi Online (www.mathrubhumi.com/english/)}

^{Photo Courtesy www.skyscrapercity.com}
Thiruvananthapuram; Creation of a specialsecurity zone around the famed Sree Padmnabhaswamy temple here is on the anvil to protect the huge piles treasures found hid in its cellars. The details of the plan had been drawn up by the police and submitted to the Government as a permanent security cover for the grand temple located in the heart of Kerala capital, Government sources said. The plan would be finalised and implemented with the approval of the Supreme Court, which has ordered the inventory of the precious articles hid in the inner-chambers of the sprawling temple, managed by a trust controlled by the Travancore royal family, the sources added.

The proposal to create a security zone, drawn up by a team of top police officials under the supervision of Director General of Police, Jacob Punnose, suggested demarcation of an area of 500 metre radius around the temple as a special zone. Besides installing sophisticated surveillance equipment for round-the-clok monitoring of the complex and its immediate environs, a special squad would be formed in the police for guarding the temple. Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who had discussions with top
police officers earlier this week on temple security, cleared that putting a fool-proof security in place would be done without coming in the way of the customs and rituals of the temple and inconvenience to devotees visiting the Lord Vishnu shrine will be avoided. The government is expected to inform the apex court about the plan to create a security zone through Additional Chief Secretary K Jayakumar, who is part of the seven-member panel of observers entrusted with the task of preparing the list of precious articles hid in the temple cellars.

Since the exercise began on Jun 27, the panel had opened five of the six cellars. They were found to contain invaluable articles like rare jewels, stone-studded crowns, heaps of gold and silver coins, idols and gold, silver and brass platters and lamps, whose value in money terms is estimated to run into nearly Rs 1 lakh crore. The observers, however, had made it clear that assessing the monetary value of the temple treasure was not their job as they had been mandated by the apex court only to prepare the inventory. PTI