"Priceless" artifacts stolen from Rashtrapati Bhavan museum

Soon after, there were reports of seepage and termites damaging the museum’s 11 galleries. And now comes the news that the museum has been vandalised and looted – one-third of the artifacts it housed are gone.

Although Pramod Ganapatye, the museum’s custodian, lodged an FIR with the Chanakyapuri Police Station on December 27, Rashtrapati Bhavan took five days to issue a cryptic press release saying "several display items of varying value are untraceable."

The FIR (No 386/97), however, reveals startling facts. It lists 120 items of "historic value" used by "Viceroys and former Presidents" as missing. Each had been indexed by the Comptroller President’s House (CPH) and when the CPH checked its inventory, it revised the number to 131.

The smaller, handy pieces – the silver and gold-gilded tableware, ornaments, Chinese porcelain and cloisonnes – have been pilfered. None of the large pieces, like the velvet and gold canopy used by the Viceroys, the portraits of former Presidents, framed drawings done by Lutyens or the furniture designed by him, have been touched.

Curiously, there are no details as to the antecedents of most of the artifacts. The FIR reads like an innocuous list: pudding plate, porridge dish, Chinese porcelain, gold-gilded tableware, cake stand, ornaments, kalash, and rose-water sprinkler among others.

Now the remaining objects in the museum are being shifted back to the dark and dank store-rooms of Rashtrapati Bhavan, perhaps never to be put out again for public display.

Experts who helped set up the museum in 1992 say the loss is irreplaceable. In all, the Willingdon Crescent museum housed some 450 pieces, a majority of which had been retrieved from store-rooms and vaults, catalogued, cleaned and put up for public display in four museums, including this one. (The other three are in the main building). UK-based curator Timothy Wilcox, who was called in to identify and value these artifacts left a detailed list of recommendations for security and maintenance.

"The antiques which have been stolen are worth a fortune," says Sita Murari, wife of P Murari, Venkataraman’s secretary. Sita was a member of the committee which set up the Willingdon Crescent museum.

"A lot of the silver and tableware belonged to the durbar of the Viceroys and may be 200 years old. This is a very sad day indeed," she says.

"We are examining the possibility of it being done by an insider or an outsider," says deputy commissioner (crime) Karnal Singh. He says that the dozen or so fingerprints and footprints found in the museum are being matched with those of the staff working with Ganapatye, who has his office within the museum premises.

According to officials of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), fingerprints were found around an ornate wall lamp which was ripped off and large footprints were found on the floor below the lamp. And, one set of finger-prints were found at the base of a gold-plated dagger which has also been stolen.

Few officials in charge of Rashtrapati Bhavan’s security and maintenance are willing to talk about the burglary. The security officers privately say the 400-acre estate, which has 35 gates and 10,000 employees, has become quite "unmanageable" and that once the museum closed down, the antiques should have been shifted back to Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Others feel the burglary would never have come to light had it not been for President K R Narayanan’s directions to spruce up the estate. Workers of the Central Public Works Department painted the museum and those of the Central Warehousing Corporation had treated the walls for termite. One of them noticed a back-door of the museum slightlyajar. A closer inspection showed the latch was broken, its screws lying on the floor and inside, cupboards bereft of their precious ware.