All the pages of a rare manuscript authored by 17th century Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, stolen from a Bihar school library last month, have been recovered by the police.
While 19 pages of the manuscript “Gulistan” were recovered two days ago, the remaining 102 pages were recovered from a village in Gaya district Saturday.
“A special police team raided the house of Butai Singh, an accused in the theft, in Chakkan Bigha village and recovered the remaining 102 pages of the manuscript Saturday night,” Gaya superintendent of police Amit Jain said on Sunday.
Valuable asset
The manuscript is said to be worth Rs.10 million in the international market.
Police raided Singh's house after an intelligence tip-off that some people were hiding in the village with the remaining pages of “Gulistan”.
But police failed to arrest Singh and the other accused as they managed to flee.
Earlier, three people were arrested while negotiating the sale of the manuscript with a Kolkata-based antique dealer who had offered them Rs.2 million.
Later a young businessman, Amit Kumar Soni, who runs a jewellery shop in Gaya was also arrested in this connection.
“All the four arrested were sent to jail and police have launched an operation to arrest the absconders,” Jain said.
Antique smugglers
“Gulistan”, written in Persian, was stolen from the Tekari Raj High School library in Gaya about six months ago. Police had suspected the hand of international antiques smugglers in the theft.
Magadh Divisional Commissioner S.K. Negi had cautioned the school authorities about the safety of the manuscript earlier.
“Gulistan”, which has colourful paintings and embroidery, also has a picture (sketch) of Aurangzeb (1618 to 1707) on the cover page.
“The rare manuscript was lying in the school for over 100 years,” a district official said.