Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Treasure hunt in Hyderabad

Hunt is on opposite the A P Secretariat for treasure worth Rs 20,000 crores.
Archaeology Department received a sworn affidavit from nine prominent citizens led by Mr T.B. Raju, chief manager (personnel), Coal India Limited.
They said they got the information about two months ago but couldn’t muster enough courage to reveal it to officials concerned fearing the mafia.
Based on the affidavit, a team of officials from the Archaeology Department inspected the site on Saturday evening and decided to start excavating on Sunday morning in the presence of a mason, who will serve as a guide.
Sources said the mason was the first person to have gone inside the tunnel where he saw two almirahs full of jewels and precious stones..

Incidentally, the prominent citizens who had petitioned the Archaeology Department, has demanded that they be given their share — one-fifth of the treasure if it is found — under the Treasure Trove Act 1878. This was reported in Deccan Chronicle on 19th Feb.2012

The mega 'treasure hunt', which the archaeology department took up on Saturday, failed to yield any result till late on Sunday evening. Even after 28 hours of digging, the department could not find even a hint of treasure. The much enthused department officials have, however, decided to go ahead with the exploration as according to them, it is "necessary to ascertain facts behind the claim". Meanwhile, D S Raju, one of the petitioners, said that he had seen the treasure and is hopeful to find it. This was the report of Times of India of 20thFeb.2012.

But the archaeology department already seems worried about its tall treasure claims. Working backwards, it has now asked for ancient maps of the locality from the AP State archives and research institute something which experts say should have been sought before the digging started. And although indulging in a rather frenzied treasure hunt, P Chenna Reddy, director, state archaeology department termed the whole exercise just an "exploration" which need not yield any result.
NMDC officials said that as per the preliminary data reading, there could be a bunker right under the Naubat Parbat and its exact location may be confirmed in the next couple of days "The soil density at one particular point indicates the presence of a bunker. We will be able to locate the exact position in the next couple of days. We will, however, not be able to locate any treasure, if there is one, using the equipment," said an NMDC official. , This was reported in the Times of India of 23rd Feb.2012.

NMDC has trashed Coal India employee D S Raju's claim based on the four-day resistivity survey they conducted at the site. “We had done both resistivity and magnetic survey at all the points pointed out to us by Raju and officials from department of archaeology but we have not found anything that supports their claim of seeing a structure 10 to 15 feet under the surface. The archaeology department can get our report verified but we suspect that if there is some structure below the surface, it is way below what they had expected," the official said. This was reported by The Times of India of 27thFeb 2012.
Questions that come mind:
What happened to the masion who saw two almirahs full of jewels? Should he not be interrogated?
Mr. D S Raju had said he had seen the treasure and was hopeful to find it. If he saw he should show. Why he is not able to find the location now?
It is possible that the treasure is already with them.
Are officials of archaeology department so naïve that they started the treasure hunt without resistivity and magnetic survey?
Archaeology Dept. owes satisfactory explanation.