Ancient statues and figurines as old as 5,500 years returned back to India and Pakistan from New York

New Delhi, Nov 16: New York public prosecutor Alvin Bragg has returned to India and Pakistan hundreds of looted ancient statues and figurines, some as old as 5,500 years, that were brought into the US by a network allegedly masterminded by Subash Kapoor, a convicted antique smuggler.

 

 

 

 

According to the reports of IANS, Bragg's office in Manhattan said that 235 antiquities from India, including many sacred images from temples, had been seized during investigations into the multinational predations of Kapoor across India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and other countries. The smuggled items were sold through Kapoor's Art of the Past gallery in Manhattan, the office said.

 

One of the pieces, a marble sculpture known as the Arch Parikara from the 12th or 13th century, was returned by Yale University Art Gallery which had received it as a donation from a family foundation that bought it from Kapoor. Bragg said, "These antiquities were stolen by multiple complex and sophisticated trafficking rings -- the leaders of which showed no regard for the cultural or historical significance of these objects." In recent weeks, the prosecutor has been returning stolen art to the countries that they came from, including Cambodia, Egypt, Israel and Italy.

 

 

 

 

 

A total of 307 items valued at about USD 4 million were handed over to India's Consul General Randhir Jaiswal at a ceremony last month, according to Bragg's office. The office said that five of the Indian antiquities were seized during investigations into smugglings by Nancy Wiener and her late mother Doris Wiener. An item seized from them and headed back to India is a statue of Bhagwan Vishnu and Goddess Lakshmi with Garuda from the 11th century looted from a temple in central India, the office said. Bragg also returned to Cambodia a sandstone statue of Lord Vishnu that had been stolen form a temple and trafficked by Doris Wiener, according to his office.

 

 

Another of the items from India was found during investigations into Nayef Homsi and the other 66 were stolen by several smaller trafficking networks, the prosecutor's office said. During more than a decade of investigations starting in 2011, it said that along with Homeland Security Investigations it had seized more than 2,500 items valued at over USD 143 million trafficked by Kapoor and his network.