The US has returned 657 antiquities collectively valued at nearly 14 million dollars to India. The return was announced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The pieces were returned at an event attended by Consul Rajlakshmi Kadam from the Consulate General of India in New York. The pieces were recovered following several investigations into trafficking networks.
Mr Bragg said, in a statement that the scale of the trafficking networks that targeted cultural heritage in India is massive, as demonstrated by the return of more than 600 pieces. He said, there is more work to be done to return stolen artifacts back to India, and thanked his team for their persistent efforts.
Consul General of India in New York, Binaya Pradhan, appreciated the sustained cooperation of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the US Department of Homeland Security and the law enforcement agencies whose continued vigilance, which he said, made the recovery and return of these culturally significant artifacts possible.
The items returned include a two million dollar bronze figure of ‘Avalokiteshvara’, seated on an inscribed double-lotus base over a lion-flanked throne. The Avalokiteshvara was one of a large hoard of bronzes discovered near the Lakshmana Temple in 1939 and entered the collection of the Mahant Ghasidas Memorial Museum, Raipur by 1952. The statue was stolen from the museum and smuggled into the US by 1982. The stolen artifacts also includes, a sandstone figure of a dancing ‘Ganesha’ from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in 2000.
