week 8-14 Feb:
• A Pakistani court has accepted a petition seeking direction to the government to bring back Koh-i-Noor from British Queen Elizabeth-II, overruling the objection to the plea for the famed diamond, which India has been trying to get from the United Kingdom for years.
• It stakes its claim over the 105-carat gem on the basis that it hailed from the territory that became Pakistan in 1947.
• Pakistan is claiming that the diamond was cultural heritage of Punjab province and its citizens owned it in fact.
India’s many requests turned down:
• India has made regular requests for the jewel’s return, saying the diamond is an integral part of the country’s history and culture.
• India says that Koh-i-Noor was illegally acquired and demands that it should be returned along with other treasures looted during colonial rule.
• Koh-i-Noor was owned by several Mughal emperors and Maharajas before being seized by the British.
• Britain has, however, consistently rejected India’s claims on the gem.
What is Koh-i-Noor??
• The Koh-i-Noor is one of the Crown Jewels and is now on display in the Tower of London.
• Britain had forcibly and under duress stole 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.
• The Koh-i-Noor was mined in medieval times in the Kollur mine in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district.
• The diamond was originally owned by the Kakatiya Dynasty, which had installed it 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. The Koh-i-Noor was transferred to the treasury of the British East India Company in Lahore. The properties of the Sikh Empire were taken as war compensations.
• It passed through the hands of various invaders and was finally appropriated by the British in 1850 during the Raj.