Symbolic photo.
New York: America has returned more than 1400 heritage items to India. This has become possible after the tireless efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A sandstone statue stolen from Madhya Pradesh in the 1980s and a statue stolen from Rajasthan in the 1960s are among the more than 1,400 antiquities returned by the US to India. The total value of these antiquities is ten million US dollars.
Let us tell you that more than 600 ancient objects stolen from India will be sent back in the next few months. The items were returned in a ceremony attended by Manish Kulhari of the Consulate General of India and Alexandra DeArmas, group supervisor of Homeland Security Investigations for the New York Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities Group, according to a statement from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg Jr. Were. Bragg said in a statement that at least 1,440 antiquities were returned to India in this program, whose total value is US $ 10 million.
From idols to much more
The returned objects include a sandstone statue of a dancer stolen from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in the 1980s, and the statue of Tanesar Mata stolen from Taneshwar Mahadev village in Rajasthan. The smugglers had divided the idol stolen from Madhya Pradesh into two parts to make it easier to sell. By February 1992, both of these parts were illegally transported from London to New York. The two parts were later professionally reassembled and donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The statue remained on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until it was confiscated by the Antiques Traffic Unit (ATU) in 2023. The statement issued on Wednesday said the various sculptures were first documented by an Indian archaeologist in the late 1950s. Some of those statues were stolen in the early 1960s.
The idol of Taneshwar Mata also returned
The statue of Taneshwar Mata was in a Manhattan gallery until 1968. The Metropolitan Museum of Art took possession of the Taneshwar Mata statue in 1993, where it remained on display until it was confiscated by the ATU in 2022. “We will continue to investigate the various smuggling networks targeting Indian cultural heritage,” Bragg said. The statement said that during Bragg’s tenure, the district attorney’s antiquities trafficking unit has recovered antiquities stolen from more than 30 countries. More than 2,100 antiquities were recovered, worth approximately US$230 million. About 1,000 antiquities are to be returned in the coming months, including more than 600 stolen from India and recovered earlier this year, the statement said. (Language)
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