ISLAMABAD
\nThe United States has repatriated 192 stolen antiquities collectively valued at $3.4 million to Pakistan after an investigation into an Indian-American art dealer and other criminal investigations, the VOA has reported.
\nThe Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office in New York announced on its website Thursday that 187 of the artifacts were recovered from Subhash Kapoor, identifying him as \u201cone of the world\u2019s most prolific antiquities traffickers.\u201d The statement said Kapoor and his codefendants smuggled looted antiquities into Manhattan and sold them through his gallery, Art of the Past.
\n\u201cWe will continue to pursue full accountability against Mr. Kapoor and his co-conspirators, who showed a blatant disregard for the cultural and historic significant [sic] of these antiquities,\u201d Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was quoted as saying.
\nThe U.S. statement noted that five India-based co-defendants and Kapoor had been held in prison in the South Asian nation since 2012 for charges relating to his role selling stolen Indian antiquities.
\nLast week, the six men were convicted and sentenced by a special court in India.
\n\u201cKapoor was convicted for receiving stolen property, habitually dealing in stolen property, and conspiracy, and fined and sentenced to thirteen years in prison,\u201d the statement said. It added that the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office is seeking Kapoor\u2019s extradition to pursue his prosecution in the United States.
\nThe antiquities were returned during a repatriation ceremony at the Pakistani consulate in New York where U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Thomas Acocella and Pakistani Consul General Ayesha Ali were present.
\nAli was quoted as praising the efforts of the U.S authorities. She noted that over the past two years, 237 artifacts, including an earlier batch of 45 items, from Pakistan\u2019s northwestern Gandhara region have now been returned to Pakistan.
\nAmong the 192 items returned Thursday are a Gandhara statue depicting Maitreya, or an enlightened Buddha, and Mehrgarh Dolls between roughly 4,500 to 5,500 years old.
\n\u201cThese objects belong to the Gandhara Buddhist civilization, having typical Greek and local influences and features,\u201d Bakht Muhammad, a senior researcher at the provincial Archaeology department in the northwestern city of Peshawar, told VOA.
\n\u201cMostly these are Kushan period objects,\u201d he said, in reference to the Kushan Dynasty, which ruled most of the northern Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia during the first three centuries of the Christian era.
\nThe antiquities were looted from a Neolithic archaeological site in Pakistan before being trafficked to New York. They were placed in a storage unit rented by agents of the Art of the Past until their seizure by U.S. authorities this year.
\nThe archaeological site of Mehrgarh in Pakistan was discovered by archaeologists in 1974 and subsequently faced looting.
\n\u201cAmong the earliest human-crafted figurines in the world, these terracotta artifacts are thought to represent mother goddesses or a cultic figure for worship,\u201d the U.S. statement noted.
\nThe Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office says it has recovered more than 2,500 artifacts trafficked by Kapoor and his network from numerous countries between 2011 and 2022. It estimates that the total value of the pieces recovered exceeds $143 million. DNA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD The United States has repatriated 192 stolen antiquities collectively valued at $3.4 million to Pakistan after an investigation into an Indian-American art dealer and other criminal investigations, the VOA has reported. The Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office in New York announced on its website Thursday that 187 of the artifacts were recovered from Subhash Kapoor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-294836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n