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Download PDF Education and Cultural Affairs Adviser Ayub Quadri yesterday said he accepts the responsibility for the two terracotta Vishnu statues’ being stolen from the Zia International Airport (ZIA).
“I don’t know if it’s my personal failure. But as the adviser of the ministry [of cultural affairs], I must shoulder the responsibility,” he said replying to a query.
He was talking to newsmen at the education ministry.
When a reporter asked him if he would step down, Quadri replied, “Do you want me to resign?”
As the questioner pressed for an answer, he said, “Let’s see, I’ll have a think about it.”
The seventh century statues–’Vishnu’ and ‘Bust of Vishnu’–went missing while in the custody of Air France sometime between 10:00pm Friday and 12 noon on Saturday.
The adviser said the government’s main concern now is to retrieve the stolen idols and detect the persons involved in the theft.
Queried if the remainder of the relics would still be sent to Paris for display at Guimet Museum, he said, “My view is that it will not be right to send those before the matter [missing of the Vishnu statues] is resolved.”
He said the decision would be taken at the government level.
Asked why the artefacts were being sent despite protests from eminent citizens and art connoisseurs, Quadri said there was opposition against sending of the age-old objects on apprehension that those might not be returned. But there was no fear that those might go missing here in Bangladesh.
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