Officials said on Monday that more than 250 antique artefacts have been repatriated to India from various countries, with 238 returned since 2014. An ancient Lord Hanuman idol dating from the late Chola period that was stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu was recently traced and returned to India, according to a senior official. According to a Union Ministry of Culture official, the government of India is working to preserve the country’s antiquarian heritage within the country and is instrumental in retrieving antique artefacts that were illegally taken abroad. According to officials, the Lord Hanuman sculpture was stolen from Shri Varatharaja Perumal, a Vishnu temple in the Pottaveli Vellur area of Tamil Nadu’s Ariyalur district. They claimed it dates from the late Chola period (14th -15th century). The French Institute of Pondicherry documented it in 1961. The sculpture was presented to the High Commissioner of India in Canberra (Australia), according to the official. The idol was returned to India in the last week of February and handed over to the Tamil Nadu Idol Wing on April 18 as a case property, he added.
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