Police arrested three residents of Rawalpindi who were digging for antique treasures and recovered excavated goods from their possession.
Earlier this month, four suspects who were digging out antiques late at night were caught red-handed by the police. Valuable antiques, excavation equipment, machines and other tools were also recovered from their possession.
According to sources, acting on information provided by the Archaeology Department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the police arrested three suspects from Basu Meera area of Kot Najibullahpolice station. SHO Siddiq Shah said, police have arrested three people who were digging out in search of antiques. The arrested suspects include Muhammad Saeed, Abdul Hameed and Nasrullah, who were carrying out illegal digging on the site of department of archaeology. He added that both the arrested suspects were looking for valuable antiques.
It should be noted that this is the second incident of illegal excavation reported from the same area during the current month. Earlier, four suspects were arrested and coins, spoons and other items were recovered from their possession.
According to the police, Sub-Regional Officer of the Department of Archaeology, K-P, Hazara Nawazuddin, had reported that he has received information from his sources that some people were excavating and extracting goods. As soon as the information was received, he along with police raided at Gudwalian area of Haripur and arrested four suspects including Umar Farooq, Sardar Ali, Javed Khan and others, who were engaged in the excavation work along with other accomplices. Coins, spoons and other articles were recovered from their possession.
The police arrested the accused along with the machine used in the excavation and registered an FIR against them.
The regional officer of the department of archaeology said that it is necessary to keep the police along for the operation. “However, the FIR is filed by the department.
He further said that Hazara has been a hub of ancient civilization; antiquities have been recovered from various sites including Khanpur,” he said and added that some people, in search of treasures, take out valuable antiques and sell them abroad which causes loss to the government and valuable items export from Pakistan and it is impossible to bring them back to the country.
Nawazuddin said that the authorities were keeping a close watch on people who commit such activities in Hazara and upon receiving information from reliable sources, departmental action is initiated.
The recovered items are kept safely in the museum after fulfilling the legal requirements, he added. He appealed to the citizens to cooperate with the department and provide immediate information about suspicious persons who excavate for antiques in search of treasure from such areas.
Nawazuddin said that such people in the form of a group do excavation work in the darkness of the night, which is an illegal act. The arrested persons involved in the other incident may belong to the same group, but more facts could be revealed during police investigation.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 27th, 2022.
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