Prime Minister Narendra Modi today reiterated his government’s commitment to bring back national heritage from abroad.
He said this while responding to a tweet by Union Minister G Kishan Reddy saying that a metal idol of Lord Hanuman that was stolen from a Vishnu Temple of Ariyalur district, dated back to the Chola Period in 14th -15th century, was handed over to the Indian Embassy in Australia. The sculpture was documented by the “French Institute of Pondicherry ” in 1961.
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The idol was returned to India in the last week of February and handed over to Idol Wing, Tamil Nadu as a case property on 18 April.
”The Government of India is working towards safeguarding the country’s antiquarian heritage within the nation and is instrumental in retrieving antiquities which were unlawfully taken abroad in the past. Till date 251 antiquities have been retrieved back from different countries, out of which 238 have been brought back since 2014,” an official release said.
