For all the hustle and bustle surrounding the Centre’s preparations for Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’ 150th birth anniversary celebrations in 2011, it’s been able to do little to ensure the recovery of his Nobel Prize medal or the 45 other valuable items that were stolen from Santiniketan some years ago. The Central investigating agency, CBI, recently informed the Union home ministry that its probe to trace the medal and the missing items has reached a dead-end. Shedding light on the present status of case, the CBI has informed the MHA that “no further clue warranting follow up of investigation has occurred till date.”
In August 2009, the Central agency had filed a final report “undetected” in the court seeking closure of the case submitting that the case would be re-opened if any clue was found. Sadly, while these items remain missing, their recovery doesn’t seem to have got adequate attention. Even though none other than PM Manmohan Singh heads a national committee to mark Gurudev’s 150th birth anniversary and a committee under Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has been set-up to plan commemorative programmes and projects. According to home ministry a list of atleast 45 “precious” items belonging to Tagore are undetected till date.
These include a walking stick with gold top, gold potted watch, red knife, one Samurai sword, one saree and one pair of cufflings, a kamala gold medal, two silver medals, two bronze medals, one star gold medal, one silver plate and another gold ring, ear tops, flower vase, two silver casket, two silver towel, one ivory casket, one gold lotus, one silver tray with coffee cup stand, one ivory figure on wooden stand, one silver buckle, one big silver bowl, one address on three gold plates and one colotype print among others.
Initially a case was registered at the Bolpur police station in West Bengal.