The missing keys to the inner room of the Ratna Bhandar (treasure house) of Puri Jagannath temple were found on Wednesday. They are however the “duplicate” ones.

Puri District Collector Aravind Agarawal said the keys were found in a sealed cover in the district record room, and the envelop had “Ratna Bhandar inner room key ( duplicate)” written on top of it, the collector told the media.

The keys were reported missing on 4 April, when the temple administration, on the direction of the Orissa High Court, was to open the Ratna Bhandar for inspection by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). A search for the keys was undertaken but while the temple administration found the key to the outer room, that to the inner room remained untraceable.

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The ASI team had entered the outer room but returned without inspecting the inner room, following which the collector had told the media that the keys were missing.

The highly emotive issue of missing keys created a furore in the state, with the BJP taking to the streets and slamming Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik over his silence over it.

The CM responded by ordering a judicial probe by a retired judge of the Orissa High Court. The BJP, however, dismissed it as a eyewash and went about filing police complaints across the state.

Doubts were raised on whether the valuables were intact or not.

The government recently removed senior IAS officer and chief administrator of the temple PK Jena from the post in what was seen as another fire fighting exercise.

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Interestingly, Jena had on 26 May given instructions to the Puri collector to conduct a thorough search for the keys again.

It is learnt that the search led to the recovery of the keys from the record room on Wednesday.

While reporting that the keys were missing, Agarwal had said the keys had never been deposited in the treasury, as had been mandated since 1962. The records showed that the last time the Ratna Bhandar was opened was in 1985 but nobody was aware where the keys had been deposited after that.

Even though the keys have been found now, they are only the “duplicate” ones, as written on the envelop.  This has also raised questions and as to why a proper search by the collector had not been conducted prior to 4 April. The coincidence of the keys being found shortly after Jena’s removal is also being discussed.