NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTION 99
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

When treasure is nothing but trouble

N Sathiya Moorthy in Nagercoil

Some say it dates backs to Maharaja Marthanda Varma, who once ruled these parts and hid in this area to escape those who wanted to usurp his throne. Others give the find a more recent origin, saying they may have been melted ornaments stolen from local temples in the recent past. While theories abound, there is no clear explanation how a pot of gold found its way underground here.

The pot of gold was discovered because the Tamil Nadu government decided to renovate the Pattanangal canal in southern Kanyakumari district.

The earthern part of the canal was being renovated under a World Bank-aided scheme, with local contractors working on stretches.

In the midst of work, the pickaxe of one worker clanged against something metallic.

"We were excited when we heard the noise," says John Rose, one of the diggers, following his surrender a week after he send the police on a wild goose chase.

"Though we prayed that it should be a treasure, we had expected the pot to contain only things associated with black magic, which is practised in these parts."

John Rose and Selvaraj, the other labourer, broke open the seal and blackened pieces of metal hemispheres, shaped something like the mounds of locally-made jaggery.

They were not sure what it was first but later realised it was gold, police sources in Nagercoil, the Kanyakumari district headquarters, quoted the two as saying.

But a local woman, Radha, got curious about what was going on in the canal.

"They shooed me away initially, saying it was a work of black magic, from which I should stay away," she said. But "if it was a pot full of black magic, why were they handling it?" she wondered. Anyway, taking no chances, she decided the pot would have to be thrown out, lest it bring misfortune to the family.

When the duo realised they could not hide it from her any more, they gave her one of the lumps, saying it could be gold after all, Radha told the police who raided her house and recovered the lump.

The duo also gave another woman, Rajkumari, a piece after she suspected something was up. That authorities recovered that piece too.

"I was there at around 3.30 pm that day, to pay the weekly wages to the two labourers," Jones, the earth-work contractor, told the police soon after surrender. "I was not even there when they dug out the pot. But when news spread by sunset, and I entered the picture, I too got two pieces of gold. And that's all I know of it."

Selvaraj sold one of his pieces to a jeweller for just Rs 9,000. The authorities have since recovered half-melted gold from the jeweller. That piece alone should have fetched Selvaraj more than Rs 140,000 in the open market.

Thus far, the authorities have recovered eight pieces of gold weighing a total of 2,397 grams, each weighing about 300 grams, Kanyakumari District Collector Pandiyan told journalists.

"They are all 24-carat, pure variety," he said.

The authorities feel there may be more gold to be found. According to those who found the pot, there should have been about 25 pieces in the pot, but they are not sure. The officials are not ready to buy that story.

"The tendency would have been to find out how many pieces there are to be shared," one official says.

Some investigators also don't believe that the other villagers, who came in droves after the word spread, shared the rest of the gold.

"That may be a way to confuse the authorities," says an Excise Department official. He said that the two women from whom the gold pieces were recovered had already broken them into smaller bits.

By conservative estimates, the gold could have weighed a total of 7500 grams, going by the statement of those arrested under the Archaeological Objects Law. And the price, at today's rates, works out to Rs 35 million. This does not include the price of the pot, which too may be made of gold, but which still hasn't been recovered.

Local old-timers say the gold may hark back to the days of Maharaja Marthanda Varma, who ruled the princely state of Travancore in the seventeenth century. The whole of Kanyakumari district then formed part of the kingdom till the linguistic reorganisation of states in 1956. Marthanda Varma was known to have hidden himself in the Chathode Palace in Munjira. That is the locality where the gold was found.

"The Maharaja was known to have given away gifts of ornaments and gold to his loyalists, even when in hiding," says a local. "Maybe, one such beneficiary, fearing either his neighbours, his family, or the enemies of the king, may have hidden it, never to return and reclaim it," one of them said.

But youngsters joked that it might be the melted parts of ornaments stolen from local temples in the mid-nineties.

The district administration is waiting for experts to date the recovered gold pieces and for the police and the excise authorities to find the remaining gold.

Back to top

Tell us what you think of this report