India has been trying to get the Kohinoor back for decades.
By Sreejith Vallikunnu
A lawyer has filed a petition in the Lahore high court asking the Pakistan government to retrieve the Kohinoor diamond, now a British crown jewel that India has been trying to get from the UK for decades.
The petition, filed by barrister Javed Iqbal Jaffry, alleged that the UK snatched the diamond from Daleep Singh, grandson of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh, and took it to Britain.
“The diamond became part of the crown of incumbent Queen Elizabeth II at the time of her crowing in 1953. Queen Elizabeth has no right on the Kohinoor diamond, which weighs 105 carats and is worth billions of rupees,” Jaffry said.
“The Kohinoor diamond was the cultural heritage of Punjab province and its citizens owned it in fact,” he added.
The petition asked the court to direct the federal government to bring the diamond to Pakistan from the British government.
Kohinoor, one of the oldest and most famous diamonds in the world, was mined at Kollur mine in Andhra Pradesh in India in the 13th century and was originally owned by the Kakatiya dynasty.
Historians say Kakatiyans had installed the diamond in a temple of a Hindu goddess, as her eye. Reportedly, in 1849, after the conquest of the Punjab by the British forces, the properties of the Sikh Empire were confiscated.
It was transferred to the treasury of the British East India Company in Lahore and the properties of the Sikh Empire were taken as war compensation. The diamond was also owned by several Mughal emperors and maharajas before being seized by the British.
Currently, Kohinoor is a part of Queen Elizabeth’s crown.
India has been trying to bring back the Kohinoor diamond from Britain for years. The country argues that Kohinoor was illegally acquired and wants it returned with other treasures looted during colonial rule.
During his visit to India in 2010, the British prime minister David Cameron stated that the diamond would stay in London. The British government also rejected India’s demands for the return of Kohinoor in 2013.
Last month, some Bollywood stars and businessmen formed an alliance and begun legal proceedings in London’s High Court demanding that Queen Elizabeth II return the Kohinoor diamond to India.
David de Souza, co-founder of the Indian leisure group Titos, is helping to fund the new legal action and has instructed British lawyers to begin High Court proceedings.