US hands over 1,440 unique heritage items to India
There are many precious statues across the country, but many have been stolen by thieves and sold. Its value is estimated to be in crores of rupees. Some of the stolen statues reached the United States and were kept in New York museums. The United States has launched an initiative to return stolen cultural artifacts from countries in South and Southeast Asia. Accordingly, more than 1,400 stolen artefacts worth $10 million (Rs 84 crore), stolen from different parts of the country, have been returned to India.
According to media reports. Looted and stolen antiquities from India were returned to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan on Wednesday. Many of these items were among the recovered artifacts, recently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Also included is a stone statue of a sacred dancer, which was smuggled from central India to London and sold there.
Sculptures from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are also included
Artifacts returned by the United States to India include a sandstone statue of a dancing girl looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in the 1980s. It was stolen and taken to London. In order to smuggle the idol, the thieves split the idol into two parts. To facilitate smuggling, the two halves of the statue were later donated to the museum together. Apart from this, it also includes a green-brown Tanesar Devi idol looted from Tanesara-Mahadev village in Rajasthan in the 1960s. Who will be brought back to India soon.
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The process of restoring the statue begins in July
In July, India and the United States launched a process to halt the illegal trade and return stolen cultural artifacts to India. In September, the United States returned 297 stolen cultural relics to India, which are about 4,000 years old.
“We continue to investigate various trafficking networks targeting Indian cultural heritage,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. During his tenure in Bragg, the district attorney’s antiquities trafficking unit recovered more than 2,100 stolen antiquities from more than 30 countries, valued at approximately $230 million, the statement said.
