Seven antique dealers arrested in Viswa Bhatari theft case

Santiniketan, Oct 18 (UNI) Bolpur police today made a major breakthrough in antique thefts of Viswa Bharati, arresting three more dealers including an employee of the insitution and seized a large number of paintings and artefacts.

Police raided a private art gallery here and seized large number of paintings and artefacts and arrested its owner Sumanta Pal, who is also an employee of Viswa Bhatari's musicial department.

SDPO Debashis Dhar said so far seven people involved in antique dealing were arrested and many rare paintings of Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray and Somnath Hore were seized from them.

He said the CBI sleuths, who were investigating the thefts of Tagore's Nobel prize medallion two years earlier, also interrogated the arrested persons.

Bolepur police also raided a resident in Kolkata's Behala area and seized some valuable documents in the theft case.

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