Drive to bring home stolen heritage

India Pride Project aims to restitute artefacts smuggled out of country

Published: 20:40 April 29, 2016

By Sandhya R Rajayer Special to Gulf News

New Delhi: In 2003, Jaipur-based art dealer Vaman Ghiya was arrested and confessed to having stolen and exported more than 10,000 pieces of art, including paintings, sculptures, idols and a dismantled Mughal pavilion the size of a house. Ghiya was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to life imprisonment, But in January 2014 that conviction was quashed by an appeals court because of procedural irregularities during the police prosecution.

Then in 2011, Indian-born Subhash Kapoor who owned the Art of The Past art gallery in New York, was arrested after US Homeland Security investigators raided Kapoor’s warehouses and found a cache of 2,622 stolen artefacts and evidence that led to an illicit business worth more than a $100 million (Dh367 million). He is at present on trial in Chennai. But the heritage art community fears that justice may not be served this time either. 

http://gulfnews.com/news/asia/india/drive-to-bring-home-stolen-heritage-1.1815066