Takht Hazur melts away precious gold ornaments, arte­facts and an­tique

By Asia Samachar | Malaysia |

Some 44 kilo­grams of gold is allegedly missing from the toshakhana of Takht Hazur Sahib, one of the five key takhts in the Sikh world.

That is not all. Gold or­na­ments, arte­facts and an­tique pieces donated by the Sikh San­gat weigh­ing 48 kilo­grams has been melted, allegedly with­out due process and au­tho­ri­sa­tion. Some of the items, carrying historicval value if preserved, are now gone forever.

The re­ported em­bez­zle­ment run­ning into mil­lions of ru­pees thor­oughly ex­poses the Hazur Sa­heb Takht Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee and the mat­ter has reached the Bom­bay High Court, reports World Sikh News (WSN).

Two Sikhs, Ran­jeet Singh Gill and Ra­jen­dra Singh Pu­jari, petitioned the Bom­bay High Court (Au­rangabad Bench) on the happenings at Sikh institution also known as Takht Sachkhand Sri Hazur Abchalnagar Sahib located Nanded in the state of Maharashtra, India.

The pe­ti­tion in the Mum­bai High Court high­lights how a vast quan­tity of gold and sil­ver or­na­ments do­nated by Sikhs over decades was melted into gold bis­cuits with­out proper per­mis­sions or over­sight, al­legedly or­ches­trated by Gu­rud­wara Board mem­ber Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai, with the du­bi­ous as­sis­tance of jew­eller San­tosh Ramk­is­han Verma of Sarang Jew­ellers, according to WSN.

Ad­vo­cate Wasif Shaikh told WSN: “The mat­ter is now listed for 18 De­cem­ber af­ter the court ad­mon­ished the State for not fil­ing the in­quiry re­port in time. The court or­der says that this is the last op­por­tu­nity pro­vided to the state oth­er­wise the Sec­re­tary will have to ap­pear in per­son.”

The toshakhana was originally a Mughal place where princes store “gifts and emblems of honor that they received for their posterity … an archive of objects whose origin and receipt embodied his status and honor” The term is of Persian origin that literally translates as “treasure house”.

This is not the first such incident in India. The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court has recently restrained till further orders the Tulja Bhavani Temple Trust at Tuljapur in Dharashiv district from carrying out further activities in view of Government Resolution (GR) of October 3 that permitted melting of nearly 204.5 kg of gold and 386 kg of silver ornaments offered by devotees between January 1, 2009 and June 10 this year, reported The Indian Express.

In the Takht Hazur incident, WSN reported that cit­ing ex­haus­tive doc­u­men­ta­tion over the years, the pe­ti­tion has de­manded that the in­quiry re­port be made avail­able to the court and that the ac­cused Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai be re­strained from con­test­ing any elec­tion to the Gur­d­wara Board till the in­quiry is com­pleted.

It noted that gold or­na­ments and other items from 1970 to 2020 were melted into bricks.

“For decades, the San­gat has en­trusted the Gu­rud­wara with heart­felt of­fer­ings of gold, sil­ver, and pre­cious stones, hop­ing to see their do­na­tions pre­served as a tes­ta­ment to faith and ser­vice. There are his­tor­i­cal arte­facts from the times of Ma­ha­rani Jin­dan and di­a­mond-stud­ded Chaur Sa­heb too.

“How­ever, be­tween Oc­to­ber 2020 and May 2022, Ravin­der Singh Bun­gai, an elected mem­ber of the Gur­d­wara Board, who of­fi­ci­ated as sec­re­tary, with bla­tant dis­re­gard for the sen­ti­ments and rights of the Sikh com­mu­nity, took it upon him­self to melt price­less or­na­ments into gold bis­cuits. This uni­lat­eral de­ci­sion, cloaked in claims of re­mov­ing im­pu­ri­ties, de­fies the very ethos of Sikh gov­er­nance, which pri­or­i­tizes col­lec­tive de­ci­sion-mak­ing through the in­volve­ment of the San­gat.

“Shock­ingly, sub­se­quent in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed that even these bis­cuits were not of pure gold, rais­ing sus­pi­cions of mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion and fraud,” added the report.

For the full report, go here.

RELATED STORY:

16 peculiar, odd and strange practices at Hazur Sahib (Asia Samachar, 16 Sept 2024)

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