Four people were arrested on Saturday for vandalizing the statue. (Representative)
New Delhi:
India has raised concerns with Pakistan over a hammer-destroyed Buddha statue in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, and called on Islamabad to ensure the protection of the cultural heritage of minorities.
A rare life-size statue of Buddha was smashed to pieces with a hammer by construction workers in Mardan district, Pakistan province. The statue belonged to the Gandhara civilization and was almost 1,700 years old, a senior Pakistani official said.
Four people were arrested on Saturday for vandalizing the statue discovered during excavations at a farm farm. The suspects had followed the orders of a local Maulvi (prayer leader).
Foreign Ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said it was an incident on July 18 in Mardan district where, during the search of one of the houses, a statue of Gandhara style Buddha was found.
“What we understand is that four Pakistani citizens at the request of a religious cleric, who told them that their faith would be renounced if they did not dismantle this statue, smashed it with a hammer,” said he said.
This has been widely condemned, including by monks in the city of Gaya, Srivastava said.
There is also widespread concern expressed by a representative sample of people in our country, he said.
“We raised our concerns in Pakistan. We expressed our hope that they would ensure the safety, security and well-being of the minority community there, as well as protect their cultural heritage,” he said. he declares.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa director of archeology and museums Abdus Samad Khan said on Sunday that the pieces of the destroyed statue had been recovered to assess its archaeological value.
The director said the statue belonged to the Gandhara civilization and was around 1,700 years old.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
