A long-dead king ‘reveals’ there is buried treasure under a fort.
By Rajiv Theodore
NEW DELHI: There is this site called wheretofindgold.us – a helpful guide for wannabe gold diggers helping them realize their adventure of prospecting for gold, information on locations and equipment needed to collect the yellow metal. This site would have come in handy for all those eager beavers struck by the gold fever, this time in India, who has taken up the shovel in a remote village following the dream of a sage who visualized 1000 tons of gold buried beneath a 19th century fort in Dhaundia Khera, in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh.
Couple of days later the seer, Swami Shoban Sarkar, added that no less than 2,500 tons of the precious metal is hidden under the ruins of Adampur village on the banks of the Ganges in the same state.
Today, unlike other Uttar Pradesh villages, Dhaundia Khera, 100 km. southwest of Lucknow, on the banks of the Ganga, is more known for all this than the fact that its 469 households have no electricity connection.
Many locals and strangers have begun excavating with so much frenzy that some have got injured in the process. At one of the sites, two priests of a Shiv temple — Mohan Dass and Ram Dutt — were held at gunpoint, beaten up and left bound and gagged. When the situation threatened to get out of hand, an armed police contingent was deployed to keep the gold diggers at bay.
“That Adampur has the treasure of the King of Reeva is known for long. Baba’s (Sarkar’s) prophecy has given it confirmation. Strangers are stalking the place. We are scared,” says Dharmendra Singh Deepu, a local.
At places where the Archaeological Survey of India is digging, locals in the vicinity are pushing the ASI to discard the spades and shovels and use JCB machines instead. In the places named by Sarkar, rituals related to exorcism have taken place for gold. Havans were organized in Kanpur Dehat and Unnao to make sure the seer’s revelation held ground.
“Baba is way off the world’s pleasures, he works for the people. He cannot be doubted,” says Hari Ram Verma, a farmer in Dhaundia Khera.
Talking to a local TV channel here, ASI director Syed Jamal Hasan said they began excavation at the site in the neighboring Unnao district after the Geological Survey of India (GSI), acting on a letter from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), carried out a survey there.
Preliminary findings suggested presence of “some metal underneath the earth”, following which ASI teams decided to proceed with the excavation, said Hasan. He said the work was also being video-graphed, while CCTV cameras have also been installed.
The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, at a Chennai rally on Thursday mocked the Congress for supposedly instigating the hunt for gold. Quick to respond, Sarkar shot off a letter, hitting out at Modi.
Even Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav wished every district of the state had such gold treasure. He sent his emissary Sunil Yadav, his advisor with minister rank, to meet the seer a day before the digging started.
“It shows how even politicians are driven my myths and superstitions in these trying times. Raja Ram Baksh (who came to the seer in his dream) was not as big a king as to possess 1,000 tons of gold. Even if he had, why would he leave it there? He lived for a year after leaving the palace,” said D P Tiwari, former head of Lucknow University’s history department.
One thing in all this is certain: The villagers have a firm belief that the seer’s dream will come true.
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