Nandita Chibber writes about the restoration of an eight century temple complex, thanks to dacoits AS KK Muhammed approached the ruins of an ancient temple complex in the Chambal ravines in Madhya Pradesh's Morena district he saw a bearded man with a cigarette in his mouth. Visibly upset, Archaeological Survey of India superintendent, Bhopal circle, admonished the man for smoking in the complex. The man retorted, "We have owned these temples for centuries and will do whatever we like.' Muhammed's aide counselled caution, "Please be careful. He is Nirbhay Singh Gujjar.' But Muhammed persisted, not wanting to waste this chance encounter with the dreaded dacoit of the Chambal Valley. "Please don't mistake the Archaeological Survey with the police or its informers,' he told Gujjar, trying to convince him that his institution wanted to restore temples of deities they worshipped. After much convincing, Gujjar saw reason and allowed the Archaeological Survey to start reconstruction work. He also assured Muhammed that he and his gang would keep off the site. The Bateshwar temple ruins, near Malanpur industrial area in Morena district, were a hideout for generations of dacoits. Though the ASI survey notified it as a protected site in 1920, there was no restoration work carried out before January 2005 because all attempts to take possession of the site were met with stiff opposition. But according to Muhammed, "The presence of dacoit gangs was actually a boon because artefacts were preserved within the temple complex'. Local lore has it that the Bateshwar complex was once called the Bhooteshwar complex. According to the ASI, most of the temples are dedicated to Shiva and date to the eight century AD. The Bateshwar ruins are spread over a square kilometre near the Chambal river. The ASI survey has two theories about the destruction of the complex. Some archaeologists in the organisation say that an earthquake destroyed the complex, others contend that the Chambal river changed course and submerged a part of the Bateshwar complex. The ASI survey has, however, no hard evidence to prove either theory. When the organisation began restoration in January 2005, experts there estimated that there were 108 temples in the complex, but as they cleared the area it struck the archaeologists that there could be as many as 300-400 temples. "Restoring each temple was like solving a complex jigsaw puzzle,' says Muhammed. "We had to build them from scratch, since we did not have any map or drawing of the original complex.' The key for the ASI team was to find stones that would fit into a particular structure. It was a tedious process, but they say that chances of stones from one temple fitting another are remote. ASI officials recall that dacoits would keep vigil while restoration work was underway. Once in a while, a few of them also pitched in with labour. The presence of Gujjar's gang around the temple complex area kept the mining mafia at bay. But this was till November 2006 when the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force killed Gujjar. Illegal sandstone mining began soon after