The United States (US) has returned 36 antiquities stolen from Pakistan and smuggled into the country, with the artefacts now set to be returned back.
The handover took place during a ceremony at the New York County District Attorney’s Office on Monday, where Pakistan’s Consul General in New York Amir Ahmed Atozai signed an agreement covering the repatriation of the artefacts.
The returned collection includes a Grey Schist Figure of Yakshi dating to the 4th Century C.E. and 35 Terracotta Fertility Figures dated to 2700–3000 B.C.
Speaking at the ceremony, Atozai thanked the Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU) of the District Attorney’s Office for its continued support in recovering and returning Pakistan’s cultural heritage.
He said that cultural heritage forms part of the common heritage of humanity, adding that the lawful recovery and return of the artefacts would allow future generations in Pakistan and around the world to study, appreciate and learn from them.
The latest handover follows the return of more than 450 cultural artefacts by the US to Pakistan in an earlier ceremony held at the Islamabad Museum.
The artefacts had been illegally removed from Pakistan and later recovered through coordination between US law enforcement agencies and Pakistani authorities.
The ATU of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office recovered the artefacts through investigations into smuggling networks, including foreign-operated criminal organisations. District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced their return at the time.
US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs S. Paul Kapur said during the ceremony that the returned artefacts represented chapters of Pakistan’s history and connected generations to their heritage.
“Among these artifacts are terracotta figurines that are more than four thousand years old,” Kapur said.
He added that the objects belonged to the people of Pakistan and had now been returned to the country.
The earlier collection included a 2nd-century CE Buddhapada sculpture valued at $1.1 million, which had been looted from Pakistan in the 1980s and trafficked to New York.
Other items included a Gandharan frieze depicting Buddhist figures, Mehrgarh terracotta figurines dating to 3500–2600 BCE, a statue of the Bodhisattva Maitreya and a Gold Strato I coin from 105–85 BCE, which authorities recovered in 2023.
