Opposite Andhra Secretariat,officials on a ‘treasure hunt’

Except disappointment,they haven’t found anything yet,though the school has seen considerable damage,including to the seating at an open-air auditorium.

After several hours of digging frenzy,officials acknowledged they were having second thoughts about whethery they were sent on a wild goose chase. Minister for Archaeology and Museums Vatti Vasant Kumar,who came to the spot to inspect,was also scathing: “I don’t think anyone has a clue what is happening here. I have told officials that instead of digging up everywhere,they should take the help of sophisticated instruments if they feel that there is something underneath,” he said as he left.

The treasure hunt started with an elderly mason confiding in a friend that he had seen an opening in the ground leading to a chamber,while building a wall on the school premises four years ago. The school,located opposite the Secretariat,was established by the erstwhile rulers of Wanaparthy and the property still belongs to them.

Besides the school is a small hillock on which stands the famous Birla temple. The treasure story rolled around until an employee of Coal India,Rama Raju,last year decided to look around the site where the mason claims to have seen the chamber. “I have been trying to ascertain if there was any underground construction at the spot since it belongs to erstwhile rulers. A few months ago I saw a small opening near the hillock and it appeared to have stairs going down,but I could not ascertain that. I wrote to the Archaeology Department only after establishing that the erstwhile rulers lived here,and that they may have built some secret chambers which may contain treasure,” Raju said.

Raju said he showed the crevice to some of his friends and they too agreed there could be an underground structure. “We met Archaeology Director P Chenna Reddy and convinced him that based on the historical background of the site,they should at least investigate,” Raju said.

“Raju and his friends could not pinpoint the place where they claim to have seen the opening to an underground structure,” Archaeology Director P Chenna Reddy told The Indian Express. “Out of curiosity and to set all speculation at rest,we are digging at several places where they think there are undergound chambers containing gold hidden by former rulers. So far we have not come up with anything.”

He added that they would try “one last time” at a site near the Home Science College where construction workers had hit upon a tunnel recently. However,it wasn’t found leading to anything.

“NMDC officials have agreed to provide some scanning equipment so that we don’t have to dig up unnecessarily,” Reddy added.

However,experts feel Reddy shouldn’t have acted in such haste on the basis of what Rama Raju and his friends claimed to have seen. “If these people saw something a year ago and thought there was gold buried there,why didn’t they approach the authorities then? Why now?” asked P Anuradha Reddy,INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage),member,Hyderabad.

As workers could not make much progress Sunday,heavy earth-moving machines were pressed into service today. It being a school holiday due to Mahashivaratri,the students at least were not inconvenienced.