SrinagarThe Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Wednesday asked CBI to give status of its investigation regarding theft of Aurangzeb-era copy of the Holy Quran from Shri Pratap Singh (SPS) Museum here in 2003.
As hearing of a Public Interest started before a division bench headed by Chief Justice Badar Durez Ahmad, counsel for the CBI informed the court that in so far as the investigation was concerned, the same was still in progress.
No results have emerged as yet and efforts would continue in future also, the counsel said.
Meanwhile, the court directed the department of Archives, Archeology and Museums to send its proposal for creation of 236 posts for the department and expressed hope that the Government shall expedite the proposal as there was dire need for maintaining and care of excavation sites and monuments.
Tahir Majid Shamsi, who also represents Archeological Survey of India, assured the court that ASI shall provide all possible coordination to Archives, Museums of J&K for better maintain and caring of all excavation sites and monuments in the state.
On one of the previous hearing, the court was informed by the Indias premier investigation that the copy of the Quran may be with National Archives of India New Delhi.
During investigation, it came to light that a holy book namely Quran Sharief with similar features was confiscated by the Crime Branch of New Delhi. Accordingly, the authorities of National Archives of India, New Delhi, were approached and relevant information about the said seized Quran Sharief including its photographs have been collected, the CBI informed the court.
Efforts towards its comparison with the available description of Holy Quran, alleged to have been stolen from SPS museum, is underway. The report vide which the Quran presently kept in National Archives of India had been declared as an antiquity has also been collected from Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi and the same is under examination for the said purpose, the report said.
The CBI had also informed that it was also scrutinizing the file pertaining to FIR (106/2003 in police station Rajbagh Srinagar which has collected from the Crime Branch Srinagar.
Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal Emperor, ruled over most of the Indian subcontinent during his reign, which lasted for 49 years from 1658 until his death in 1707.
The judicial intervention has already led to retrieval of 31 copper and silver coins besides one-gun bearing accession number 412 along with other artifacts from Research Wing of the SPS libraries, which were gifted to Shimla Museum in 1973.
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