A court in the Gaya district of Bihar convicted five persons on Monday for stealing ancient statues of Buddha and votive stupas to smuggle them out of the country, and awarded them five years of rigorous imprisonment.

The court of additional district and sessions judge Ranjeet Kumar also imposed a fine of Rs 1 lakh each on the five convicts — Ghunghat Chaudhary, Arvind Kumar, Shamshad Alam, Amit Kumar and Muhammad Sonu.

All the convicts faced charges under Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections 413 (Habitually dealing in stolen property) and 414 (Assisting in concealment of stolen property).

Very few antique smugglers are arrested and convicted in Bihar even though an organised and well-heeled mafia keeps robbing Bihar of its historical treasures.

Acting on intelligence inputs, a police team led by Bodh Gaya station house officer (SHO) Rupesh Kumar Sinha had raided Ghunghat’s residence at Mastanpura village on February 26, 2022, and recovered three sacks containing idols and votive stupas.

Arvind, Shamshad and Amit were also present at Ghunghat’s residence. All of them were arrested and a car was also seized from the place during the raid.

The police officials interrogated them and raided the residence of Sonu at Par Nawada village under Bundelkhand police station in Nawada district on the same night and arrested him. A few statues were recovered from his house too.

The case was put on “speedy trial” and nine witnesses gave their statements against the arrested persons, leading to their conviction. The recovered antiquities were valued as priceless treasures and could have fetched several crores of rupees in the international market.

Sitaram Upadhyaya Museum curator and expert on ancient statues, Shiva Kumar Mishra, who participated in the court proceedings to determine the authenticity of the antiquities said that that three of the seized Buddha statues were rare and exquisite.

“The Buddha statues are made of black basalt stone. One of them is two feet tall while another is a foot and seven inches in height. Both have Sanskrit inscriptions in the Tirhut script of Buddhist mantras. Both could be dated back to the ninth century AD,” Mishra told The Telegraph.