Germany has returned a 10th century idol of Goddess Durga to India, nearly 24 years after it was stolen from a temple in Jammu & Kashmir and later smuggled out of the country.
The authorities of Baden-Württemberg state of Germany returned the sculpture to the Indian Embassy in Berlin on September 23. The statue – Durga as Mahishasuramardini with eight arms – was brought to New Delhi and was displayed at the Hyderabad House here on Monday, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the media after chairing the third round of inter-governmental consultations.
“A very special word of gratitude to Chancellor Merkel and the people of Germany for the return of the 10th century statue of Durga in her Mahishasuramardini avatar from Jammu & Kashmir,” said Modi.
The sculpture was stolen from a temple at Tengpona in the Pulwama district of Jammu & Kashmir in the early 90s and was subsequently smuggled out of the country.
In 2000, the Linden State Museum for Ethnology at Stuttgart spent $ 250,000 to buy the statue from Subhash Kapoor, an art-dealer based in New York. It was later revealed that Kapoor is the kingpin of an international antique smuggling network. Kapoor was arrested at the Frankfurt International Airport in October 2011 and extradited to India in July 2012 on charges of handling stolen artefacts from temples in the country.
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