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A former Ranji cricketer from Andhra Pradesh is among the seven persons arrested in connection with the theft of a 2,300-year-old Buddha statue from a museum in Krishna district.
The 6.5-feet tall Buddha statue, weighing 950 kgs, was recovered from a hideout in Hyderabad. The statue, with its face defaced and legs disfigured, would still have fetched Rs 15 million in the international market.
The Krishna police arrested former Ranji cricketer Narra Pavan Kumar and six others, while two more accused are absconding. Kumar played for Andhra in 1984-85 and was working with a multi-national company at Hyderabad. One of his accomplices, G Gangadhar, was the distributor for the MNC.
The main accused Gadam Rajesh Kumar alias Raju was 'inspired' by a Telugu newspaper report that antique Buddha statues have great value in the international market. He scouted Buddhist sites at Amaravati, Nagarjunakonda, Jaggaiahpet, Goli, Bhattiprolu, Anaparthi, Vijayawada and other places.
When he visited the Ghantasala museum, he found a Buddha statue abandoned in the compound. He observed the museum timings and movement of people there for a couple of days and found that there were no caretakers at the museum at night. On the night of November 29 last year, he brought 16 workers and took away the huge limestone statue in a lorry.
The statue was first taken to Guntur and later transported to Hyderabad in December last year and kept at a rented house in Alkapuri. In April this year, the mutilated statue belonging to Satavahana or Ashoka period, was shifted to a house at Madhuranagar in Hyderabad and kept in the custody of N Gangadhar, who unsuccessfully tried to sell it.
The police conducted searches at Rajahmundry, Cuddapah, Madras and other places. Recently, a group of 15 persons were arrested in connection with a similar theft at Chandavaram museum in Prakasam district. The police kept a close watch and masquerading as antique buyers, approached them and found out that Gangadhar was in possession of the Buddha statue.
The Krishna police raided the house in Hyderabad and recovered the statue last week. They arrested the accused who included Rajesh, his brother-in-law Matta Raghavendra Rao and associates Pavan Kumar, N Kanaka Durga Prasad, N Venkata Ratnam Naidu and N Narayana Rao. All of them are related and residents of Guntur and Hyderabad.
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