As confusion, blame game and the flurry of activities over the ‘missing’ Rabindranath Tagore memorabilia continue, the secretary of the West Bengal Heritage Commission, Umapada Chatterjee, on Sunday confirmed that not a single original manuscript related to the Nobel Laureate was displayed at the Rabindra Bhawan Museum at Mungpo in Darjeeling.

Mr Chatterjee also claimed that all the manuscripts are in safe custody at Visva Bharati.

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“No original script was there. Manuscripts are under the custody of Visva Bharati in Santiniketan. I do not have knowledge about other things and how and when Visva Bharati took Tagore’s writings in its custody. The director of the Cinchona plantation (Dr Samuel Rai) will be able to say something about the other related matters in detail,” Mr Chatterjee said.

It may be noted here that Mr Chatterjee, the former director of Information, and who is now the special secretary of the Information and Cultural Affairs department, has sought a clarification from Dr Rai, following media reports that said some original items from the Rabindra Bhawan had allegedly gone missing after its renovation.

An expert on Tagore, Arunendu Banerjee, meanwhile, said Visva Bharati is not the custodian of the Rabindra Museum at Mungpo. “The Cinchona plantation authority is the custodian of that museum,” he said.

The State Heritage Commission had appointed Mr Banerjee as a consultant for the restoration of the dilapidated Rabindra Bhawan at Mangpo.

Members of the North Bengal University Heritage Project committee, after visiting the site, had recommended in 2012 that the Rabindra Bhawan at Mungpo be treated as a heritage property, according to the committee’s coordinator and historian, Dr Ananda Gopal Ghosh.

The West Bengal Heritage Commission under the Information and Cultural Affairs department finally took the initiative to renovate the dilapidated building, as many other original memorabilia were being damaged. Another objective was to attract tourists there.

Talking to this correspondent over the phone, Mr Umapada Chatterjee said: “All steps were taken to record the items in the possession of the museum before its renovation work started.”

Asked to comment, Mr Banerjee, the private consultant for the restoration of the heritage building, said: “I was appointed by the Heritage Commission as a consultant for restoration of the museum building. I was not associated with the museum. All norms were followed before the restoration work started to maintain the records and all are under the safe custody of the directorate of cinchona and other medicinal plants.”

“A temporary museum gallery was set up for its inauguration on the birthday of Rabindranath Tagore to mark Pochishe Boishak(9 May) this year,” Mr Banerjee added.

The construction agency took one-and-a-half years to complete the restoration, starting in 2016; it was delayed due to the 104-day-long agitation in the Hills and massive rainfall during the monsoon, sources said.

Sources also confirmed that a full-fledged museum has been proposed as part of the second phase plan and that many items will be displayed after completion of that project.

Controversy has, however, cropped up over some original items that have allegedly gone missing at the present set-up at Mungpo, like Tagore’s ‘bio-chemic’ medicine box, colour painting box, his dresses like the Tibetan robe, and newspapers during the period of the Second World War, and a few others.