Thieves at the museum

Authorities not sure about how many artefacts stolen; no proper inventory done since 1982
“Insiders” stole nine gold medals and 17 antique silver coins from four showcases of gallery 21 of the National Museum and replaced those with bronze and steel replicas, reports The Daily Star.
However, the authorities are not yet sure exactly how many objects were stolen from their store over the years, as they did not maintain any proper inventory since 1982.
The authorities say the thieves must be insiders as no burglary was reported since 1991 after a gold-silver made lion-faced arm of the throne of Dighapatia king was stolen.
“So, we know for sure some of the museum officials are responsible for this. Now we are investigating exactly how many pieces were stolen and who did it,” said Promod Mankin, state minister for cultural affair ministry, who visited the museum yesterday.
The museum authorities say they have acute shortage of workforce and still could not start the inventory as all the responsible people are on leave preparatory to retirement (LPR) or remain suspended on charge of neglect of duty.
“There are at least 55,000 objects in the store, more than double of what we display. So making a proper checklist is a time consuming matter. We could not start the work yet,” said Prokash Chandra Das, director general (DG) of Bangladesh National Museum.
“It will take another six months to complete the inventory. May be then we will come to know exactly what and how many are missing,” he added.
Insiders say at least one coin from the Tripura dynasty was stolen before 2005 and another in last five years when Dr Rezaul Karim [went on LPR in June 2009] was the keeper.
In the case statement, Secretary to the museum Alam Ara Begum mentioned the museum authorities made a documentary in 2005, according to which a rare coin of the Tripura dynasty was missing from the showcase No. 3,461.
But now the investigation team of the museum found two coins are missing.
Some medals including the Queen Victoria Cross of Nawab Abdul Latif and an Ekushey medal are seen in that documentary. Those medals are seen in a video made in 2005 in the No. 3,463 and 3,464 showcases.
But none of those are available now, the case statement reads.
Earlier, when Vishnu and Bust of Vishnu, two valuable statues from the Gupta era, were stolen from airport on way to Paris on December 21, 2007 and police recovered some clay pieces, experts from the museum certified those as genuine after just manual checks.
Since its inception in 1913 with only 17 objects, the museum has been maintaining its registry of the treasures manually even today.
Over 80 percent of around 87,000 objects are remaining in the store for years, insiders say, adding, the museum authorities have not displayed those.
Even after 10 months of taking charge from former keeper Rezaul Karim, Begum Nur E Nasrin, deputy keeper of History and Classical Arts, and Assistant Keeper AKM Saifuzzaman did not check those objects.
Before going on retirement in June 2009, Dr Rezaul Karim, eminent old coin expert and also the former keeper of History of Classical Art department, was in charge of those.
Asked about security concerns, all the high officials said the storeroom is very safe as nobody is allowed to get in.
Only the keeper keeps the keys but has to take officials from the security wing when he or she opens the store.
All the details of the objects are written in the registry and all objects have an accession number. So the museum officials have to read out the registry book and check the accession number of the objects.
But the authorities do not have any arrangements yet to identify whether the object is a fake or real, museum official say.
The authorities say the officials are supposed to take photographs and describe in the registry book the object with photos. But the officials did not do it for all objects, investigation finds.
“So there was serious neglect in preservation and registration system of the museum,” said the newly appointed DG.
Although treasures of Bangladesh National Museum are increasing every year, the authorities have yet to introduce modern security system and technologies to identify originality of the collection.
Experts say some of the items of the museum are really unique and hard to find a second copy.
But over the years, the government showed utter negligence to those and even didn’t make any publication in this regard.
According to museum sources, of the four wings, History and Classical Art had 67,164 items, Ethnography and Classical Decorative Art 11,740 items, Contemporary Art and World Civilisation 4,958 items and Natural History had 2,319 items in 2007.
Now the authorities are thinking about digital object ID following theft from a gallery display showcase.

Courtesy of The Daily Star