No law in Sindh to deal with sale of antique items

Mohen Jo Daro, Mehrgarh, Gandhara artefacts being sold online by various vendors

KARACHI: Due to the absence of any law regarding protection of antique items in the province, various groups of treasure hunters are actively offering archaeological objects for sale on social media and WhatsApp.

Despite being at the helm of affairs for the last eight years in Sindh, the Pakistan Peoples Party has failed to enact any law to preserve and protect antiques.

Sikandar Ali, a resident of Kamber-Shahdadkot district is one of the treasure hunters who claim to be possessing original artefacts discovered from sites such as Mohen-Jo-Daro, Harappa, Mehgarh , archaeological sites of Gandhara civilisation and even ancient sites in Afghanistan,

"I have rare seals of copper dating back to between 2,000 and 2,500 BC. We can also provide you rare statuettes of Buddhist era," Ali claims. He introduces himself as an archaeologist and claims that he has collected various relics such as pottery, coins and statuettes from various sites.

"We have found precious stones from Dhandihar-Jo-Daro near Gabi Dero in Kamber-Shahdadkot district. If you have any expert, we can show him," claimed another treasure hunter while speaking to The Express Tribune. He asserted that all his collector's items were original and nothing was a replica.



Need for a law

However, many archaeological experts claim that many such persons are defrauding people by selling them replicas in the name of original antique objects. They also term such businesses illegal even if they are offering genuine items.

"Once upon a time, there were trade control branches of antiquities department. In every district, officials operated against businesses of antique items [even in the absence of any law]," said a senior official of the antiquities department. He lamented that now private persons were free to carry out excavations at historical sites and run businesses of relics. The official added that many rare objects had gone missing from museums of Sindh and their traders were in connivance with government officers in their illegal businesses.

"You must have heard about the burglary incident in Mohen Jo Daro wherefrom 40 precious seals and copper tables were stolen in 2002," he said, adding that many artefacts disappeared from the National Museum in Karachi as well.

A senior archaeologist, Qasim Ali Qasim, who has served more than 30 years in the archaeology department said no one could move rare objects from one district to another without permission.

"Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have passed laws [to protest antique items], but Sindh [which has several archaeological sites] has no law," Qasim said. He added that eight years ago, the antiquities were a federal subject due to which provinces had not made any legislation regarding them.



The archaeologist bemoaned the fact that the Sindh government failed to pass any law for the protection of artefacts after the matter was devolved to the provinces. "The seriousness of the provincial government can be measured from the fact that there is hardly any antiquity expert in this department," he said.

According to Qasim, the culture, tourism and antiquities department was paying no attention to discover, excavate and preserve historical sites and all of its energies were being utilised in organising conferences. "Nothing can be done until a law is passed on this issue," he remarked.

Despite many attempts, the minister and secretary of the department could not be contacted. However, a department's spokesperson said that they had finalised the draft of the 'Antiquities Act' which would be presented in the Sindh Assembly soon.  "In the absence of antiquities law, we are running the affairs of the antiquities department under the Sindh Cultural Heritage Preservation Bill 1994, the spokesperson explained, adding that the law, according to experts, did not deal with antiquities and only concerned heritage buildings.