[MSN] France sends back 42 artefacts next month

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

France sends back 42 artefacts next month
Pinaki Roy and Kailash Sarkar

The 42 artefacts sent to Guimet museum in Paris on December 1 would come
back by next month, ministry sources said.

"France government has already agreed to send the artefacts back. Now we're
looking forward to receiving those, possibly within next month," said
Sharful Alam, newly appointed secretary to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs.

The sources said the foreign ministry has already written to its counterpart
in France regarding the artefacts. The France government is now consulting
with Guimet museum authorities about the procedures of sending them back.

A high official of the ministry termed the present situation "concrete
development".

The sources said initially the French authorities proposed to pack and hand
the artefacts over to the Bangladesh Embassy in Paris but the Bangladesh
government did not agree to it.

"We've told them to get the artefacts back to our Museum gate as per the
agreement," a source from the ministry said.

An inter-ministerial meeting will be held next week to discuss the issue,
the sources said.

The cultural ministry might arrange a press conference following the meeting
to make public all information about developments in stolen Vishnu statues
and return of the artefacts, they added.

The government sources said they are yet to claim the insurance money of the
two stolen 'Vishnu' statues as those were stolen on November 22 after being
handed over to the representative of Guimet museum.

For those age-old 'Vishnu' and 'Bust of Vishnu' statues the insurance value
was settled only 45,000 euro.

Sources in Rapid Action Battalion said they have so far recovered 47
segments of the mud statues.

However, a scientific test is yet to be conducted to be sure whether those
pieces were really from the Gupta era artefacts.

Meanwhile, two more detained suspects in the artefact theft case, Abbas Ali,
alleged ringleader of "Abbas-Nasir" smuggling gang at Zia International
Airport, and Nasir Uddin, yesterday confessed before the court under section
164 following seven days' remand in two terms.

The Rab arrested another member of the smuggler ring, Abdur Razzaq, in
Shariatpur on Tuesday and took him to Rab-1 headquarters.

Capt Parvez of Rab said Razzaq, who was a loader of the civil aviation for
six years, admitted that he his was involved in the theft and went into
hiding on December 26.

The Rab official said: "Razzaq in connivance with detained Monir loaded the
statues to a GMG pickup van and later he smuggled it out of the airport by a
car of the civil aviation."

Sub-inspector Monu Sohel Imtiaz of Airport Police Station who is also the
investigation officer (IO) said the law enforcers have arrested 28 people so
far.

Among them, nine confessed under section 164 and the rest were sent to jail.

Asked, National Museum authorities said the remaining 143 artefacts are kept
at the storeroom of the museum after taking those back from ZIA.

"The government will take a decision about those after the investigation is
done," said Samar Chandra Paul, director general of the museum.

Following the theft, the government formed a probe committee, members of
which did not make public their reports.

The government later formed another high-profile probe committee led by the
cabinet secretary which is still at work.

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