Kolkata, October 3
President A.P.J Abdul Kalam who visited Santiniketan on Friday and made inquiry about the stealing of Tagore’s Nobel Prize and other memorabilia from the Visva Bharati Museum, expressed unhappiness that such heinous crime could have been
committed.
“It’s disgraceful that such a thing had happened and it’s more disgraceful and disappointing that the stolen medal still could not be recovered, the President is reported to have said.
Incidentally, the President is the Visitor (Paridarshaka) and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati.
During his meeting with Vice-Chancellor Sujit Bose and university teachers, Dr Kalam assured them of talking to Home Minister Sivraj Patil and finding out what progress had been made by the CBI inquiry into the matter.
The President had resented that there had been so much delay in the recovery of the Nobel Prize and bringing the culprits to book.
Dr Kalam inquired from the Vice-Chancellor where the prize medal had been kept and how it could have been stolen.
The President was told that the museum which was under lock and key might have been opened with the help of a duplicate key, indicating that some of the university staff must have been involved in the incident.
The incident occurred on February 26 and the state CID as well the CBI immediately started inquiries separately. Over 200 person, including Visva Bharati staff members, have been interrogated nine suspects have been arrested so far but neither the prize medal was recovered nor could any of the lost memorabilia be located.
Incidentally, former Visva Bharati Vice-Chancellor Dilip Sinha and two other former Registrars, who were arrested in some other case, were in the CID’s suspect list, according to Mr M.K. Mahanti, ADGP (CID). But neither could be directly implicated into the Nobel Prize theft case.
