Thieves return stolen treasure to temple in India: "Haunted us nightmares"

A gang of thieves returned 16 pagan statues she had stolen from an ancient Hindu temple.

Next to the stolen statues is a letter in which the thieves explained that they suffer from real nightmares and "are unable to sleep, eat and live peacefully."

It turns out that cases of returned antique items are common in the world - and especially in Italy

Not to be missed

27/05/2022

Friday, 27 May 2022, 00:48

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

• Share on general

• Comments

  Comments

Thieves returned items stolen from a Hindu temple after suffering nightmares (Aaj Tak)

A gang of thieves returned more than a dozen idols she stole from an ancient temple in India and in a letter they left explained that they did so because since the theft they have been suffering from nightmares and are unable to sleep, eat and live peacefully.

Last week, local police said 16 statues of Lord Blagi, a reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, had been stolen from a 300-year-old temple located in the Chitrakut district of Uttar Pradesh, India.

The idol statues are mostly made of copper and silver and one of them is made of Ashtadhatu - an alloy of eight metals.

However, police were not forced to do much work in locating the stolen items, as they were returned on Monday with a confession and apology.

Police Inspector Rajib Singh told AFP: "On Monday night they left 14 of them near the temple director's house. They also left a confession letter stating that they were returning the statues because since the theft they have been suffering from nightmares."

The Times of India reported that the thieves wrote in the letter: "We have been suffering from nightmares since we committed the theft and have not been able to sleep, eat and live peacefully. We are tired of the scary dreams and we are returning your valuables."

They also apologized.

The thieves returned all but two of the statues - and apparently decided they could endure 1/8 of the nightmares that accompany the treasure left in their possession.

Local media reported that police are continuing their investigation to locate the thieves.

More on the subject

Before being sold abroad, about 1,800 ancient coins and rings were seized at a home in Modi'in

To the full article

More in tourism:

• The mysterious island that appears in Google Maps but does not exist in reality

• The government asks the public to stop picking a plant that looks like an endangered male genitalia

• The natural solution to knee pain is closer than ever - with a refund from the health insurance fund

It turns out that thieves who return antiquities they stole because they believe they are cursed is a surprisingly common thing.

Over the years hundreds of items were taken from the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, where thousands of bodies were perfectly preserved by the volcanic ash and pumice stone from the particularly powerful eruption of the Vesuvius volcano that erased everything, including the neighboring town of Herculaneum, thousands of years ago.

So many thieves continue to return their stolen belongings - thinking they are cursed - that Pompeii has a permanent exhibition of these items and accompanying letters of remorse.

In 2020, a thief returned a figurine he had taken from Domus Pompeian, explaining in a letter that the sculptor had released "an evil eye in his family."

Eventually it turned out that the statue stolen at all was a replica, and the thief just did not know it.

The "Curse of Pompeii" - as well as the nightmares that the thieves of the god Blagi have gone through - is probably nonsense.

However, a Canadian resident named Nicole is willing to swear that the items she stole ruined her life.

According to the Italian newspaper Il Messagero, Nicole stole mosaic tiles, pieces of marble and part of an amphora (pot with two handles) from Pompeii in 2005, when she was 21 and wanted to take with her a unique souvenir that "no one can get".

She took them to her home in Canada, and then - she said - the curse broke out.

"I took a piece of history that has formed over time and has a lot of negative energy in it. People have died so horribly and I have taken parts related to that land of destruction," she wrote in the letter, which was presented to Il Messagero.

"Since that day, bad luck has befallen me and my family. I am 36 now and have had breast cancer twice, the last time ended in a double mastectomy. My family and I also had financial problems. We are good people and I do not want to pass that curse on to my family or children. ".

Nicole promised in the letter that she would return to Italy one day to apologize in person, but she was returning them now in the hope that it would "shake off the curse that fell on me and my family," she wrote, "Please accept these items so you can do the right thing instead of the mistake I made. ".

• Tourism

• news

Tags

• Thieves

• Temple

• India