Bronze plaques go missing from war cemetery in Guwahati

Guwahati, Feb 14 (ANI): In a bizarre incident, ancient bronze plaques went missing from the graves of a war cemetery in Guwahati.

The security at Guwahati War Cemetery, one of the biggest war cemeteries, is at stake. About seven bronze plates from the memorial graves of the brave war soldiers have been stolen since 2008.

The plaques, which would fetch only a meager amount in the scrap market, are of immense importance as they have names and other relevant information engraved on them.

The in-charge of the War Memorial is worried about the remaining lot, as the site does not have any caretaker apart from the two gardeners and a manager.

"Seven bronze plates were stolen from Guwahati War Cemetery.

These plates are manufactured in UK and are brought here in India. These are very expensive items," said Kenny Shekhose, in-charge of the cemetery.

The police have neither taken any action nor visited the place of occurrence after filing FIR couple of times.

Out of the nine war cemeteries in the country, Assam has two. Of them Guwahati War Cemetery is the biggest with 523 graves.

According to the sources, the cemetery was judged the best maintained War Cemetery in the country.

Ironically these plaques are brought all the way from UK and the Commonwealth Graves Commission maintains them.

About 461 of the 523 graves of the cemetery are of the soldiers from Second World War. 316 among them are graves of British soldiers, four of Australians, four of Canadians, 136 of Indians and one from New Zealand. (ANI)