Bihar police have recovered a rare and priceless 1000-year-old stone statue of Buddhist deity ‘Jambhala’ after it was discovered during the desilting of a pond near the Unesco world heritage ruins of the ancient Nalanda University.
However, the local people tried their best to hide it for their own selfish interests.
They handed over a fake idol hurriedly made from some cementing material and handed it over to the police team that visited the place after getting a tip-off on the find. But some archaeological experts detected the mischief and pointed it out to the police, who rushed back and recovered the original one.
“The statue was discovered during the silt removal work at ‘Tar Singh Pokhar’ — a pond near the Nalanda ruins on January 30. It was kept in the bucket of a JCB machine and removed from the place. When we went there to recover it, the people handed us a fake one made of cement and other material,” Nalanda station house officer Dinesh Kumar Singh told The Telegraph.
“We went to the area again and managed to recover the original one. We will hand it over to the ASI assistant superintending archaeologist Shanker Sharma,” Singh added.
