India received 657 antiquities from the United States, with a total value of about $14 million. These artifacts were stolen and trafficked across international networks before being sold in the United States. Two key figures linked to the racket are disgraced art dealer Subhash Kapoor and convicted trafficker Nancy Weiner.
While announcing the repatriation, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said more efforts were needed to return stolen cultural property to India. The artefacts were handed over at a ceremony attended by Rajalakshmi Kadam of the Consulate General of India in New York.
“The scale of the smuggling networks targeting India’s cultural heritage is enormous, as evidenced by the return of more than 600 objects today,” Bragg said, adding that much work remained to recover the looted antiquities.
1. Avalokiteshvara bronze statue
A bronze statue of Avalokiteshvara, valued at $2 million, depicts the god seated on a carved double lotus pedestal atop a throne flanked by a lion. The inscription names Dronaditya from Sipur, near present-day Raipur in Chhattisgarh.
The statue was one of a large hoard of bronze that was discovered near the Lakshman Temple in 1939 and was later placed in the Mahant Ghasidas Memorial Museum in Raipur. The statue was stolen from the museum and smuggled into the United States by 1982, eventually ending up in a private collection in New York by 2014.
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2. Dancing Ganesha sandstone sculpture
A sandstone statue of a dancing Ganesha was looted from a temple in Madhya Pradesh in 2000. In 2012, Weiner fabricated its provenance and sold it through Christie’s New York after putting it up for auction. The piece was purchased by an antique collector, who later handed it over to authorities earlier this year.
3. Red sandstone Buddha in Abhaya Mudra
Another important artefact is a red sandstone Buddha, depicted standing with his right hand raised in abhaya mudra – a gesture symbolizing protection.
The statue is damaged, with its feet broken below the knees and only parts of the halo remaining, most likely due to the circumstances of its theft from northern India. The $7.5 million statue was smuggled into New York by Kapoor and confiscated by an antiquities smuggling unit from one of his storage units in New York.
Consul General of India in New York, Binaya Pradhan, expressed his appreciation for the continued cooperation of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the US Department of Homeland Security, and law enforcement agencies whose “continuous vigilance has made the recovery and return of these culturally significant artifacts possible.”
(With inputs from PTI)
