Tales From The Darkest Of Crypts

바카라�We are afraid that the case will fizzle out, as most do when the media stops talking about it, and my little brother will never be found,바카라� Anil Upadhyay tells Outlook on the phone from Jaunpur city, UP, where he works as a railway station master. The eldest brother of Sunil Upadhyay, the 35-year-old scientist and chief conse­rvation offi­cer at the Indian Museum in Calcutta (IMK), who is missing since July 2014, says the family has moved the courts in Calcutta for a CBI inquiry. 바카라�We do not want to suggest that the CID is not trying,바카라� he says, clearly not wanting to rub the Bengal Pol­ice바카라�s detective dep­artment, which is handling the case, the wrong way. 바카라�But since the CBI is the country바카라�s biggest inv­estigating body, we would feel rea­ssured if it took up the case.바카라�

He wonders why the different agencies cannot work together to trace Sunil. 바카라�We are very small people바카라� he says, his voice quivering, 바카라�but Sunil was a big scientist. He was a bright student and fought diverse odds, like backwardness, to reach where he did, completing his PhD in Chemistry from Delhi University and being sent to the US for higher studies. Doesn바카라�t the government care about him anymore?바카라� The glimmer of hope when Outlook first spoke to him soon after Sunil disappeared (see Museum of Little Secrets, Aug 4, 2014), has given way to a sense of resignation. 바카라�Some­times my mother searches through the newspapers바카라� 바카라�missing persons바카라� columns and cries. When there is news of a missing person who has been discovered dead, she goes stone cold. We often fear the worst....바카라� he breaks down.

Early last year, the CID had submitted a 바카라�final report바카라� to the court of judicial magistrate in Alipore, Calcutta, in which it stated that the investigation drew a blank. The court was not satisfied and directed the CID to continue the probe. CID deputy superintendent Madhu­shudhan Nath, who is currently in-charge of the case, tells Outlook, 바카라�We are leaving no stone unturned. We are following every lead, making inquiries and going through documents. We are even revisiting the leads followed earlier.바카라�

Sources in the CID tell Outlook that their initial view as expressed in the final report suggested the possibility that the scientist may have left on his own. One official jus­tifies this argument with cla­ims such as 바카라�he is supposed to have been suffering from depression because of a host of reasons, including work pre­ssure and office politics and was taking medication for it.바카라� Another says, 바카라�He didn바카라�t even take his cell phone with him. He could have been in a mental state where he did not want to be contacted.바카라� The scientist is said to have been blamed for the damage to a priceless sculpture, the Rampurva Lion Cap­­ital, during the museum바카라�s renovation. Ano­ther CID official tells Outlook, 바카라�While it is difficult to speculate, the investigation has not ruled out the possibility that the scientist may have met with an accident and lost his memory. We deal with many such cases. It is not unusual.바카라�

But Sunil Upadhyay바카라�s colleagues at IMK, who suspect foul play, are reluctant to accept these explanations. 바카라�Sunil was a whistleblower who fearlessly raised questions about corruption in the IMK,바카라� an IMK employee tells Outlook. 바카라�IMK is an institute which deals in crores of rup­ees worth of art and artefacts. From rare gems to antique coins, from priceless paintings to ageless sculptures, the mus­eum is a treasure trove of high-value items. He was convinced that a money-laundering rac­ket was operating with help from within IMK, which formed a chain, involving influential people, including politicians, police and possibly the international art and antique-smuggling mafia.바카라�

Sunil바카라�s cousin, Sirish Upadhyay, tells Outlook, 바카라�Just a few days before he disappeared, Sunil had told us that he had been offered Rs 90 lakh as bribe by unknown IMK officials so that he would keep his mouth shut about the smuggling out of some antiques. But he refused. Anyone offering that kind of money cannot be a petty thief. It would have to be someone capable of foul play like kidnapping and eliminating someone.바카라� Not willing to accept other explanations behind Sunil바카라�s disappearance, he says, 바카라�If he had gone off on his own, he would have at least withdrawn money for basic survival. But police found no transactions since his disappearance. He only had Rs 50,000바카라�showing how an officer of his stature, who could have minted money, was honest to the core.바카라�

According to insiders, Sunil, who was suffering from depression and  possible heart disease when he disappeared바카라�was a rare voice of dissent within the IMK, where corrupt officials allegedly acc­epted bribes from art and antique smugglers for looking the other way. One such serious charge against these operatives within, according to IMK officials who spoke to Outlook, is that they help in producing duplicates of original artefacts and even in smuggling the originals out, to be later replaced by the replicas. 바카라�In one case, a dozen Burmese teakwood beams were burgled out and sold to furniture manufacturers,바카라� an IMK official reveals. The institute was embroiled in a scam in 2011, when a few (among several) Rabindranath Tagore paintings from the museum, which were put on display at the Government College of Arts and Craft, were found to be fakes. 바카라�The perpetrators had hoped that the fakes, once passed off as the real thing, would fetch attractive dividends if they could be sold,바카라� the IMK official points out. In another instance, before a visit by then PM Man­mohan Singh for the bicentenary celebrations of IMK in 2014, antique coins were hurriedly put on display using common glue (Dendrite, to be precise), instead of a special chemical that is non-corrosive. 바카라�The pieces were ruined forever,바카라� the official says. 바카라�But behind this was more than mere neglect. It was an attempt to have the coins brought out for repairs and deliberately misplaced.바카라�

Aletter written by Saumyo Mukherji,  an outgoing legal consultant of IMK바카라�who infers that his contract was not ren­ewed due to his pursuance of cases of mismanagement and corruption as well as the resultant disagreements with higher ups바카라�add­ressed to the governor of West Bengal, who is also chairman of the board of trustees of the IMK, enumerates a host of such alleged irregularities, inc­luding misappropriation of funds, dispr­oportionate expenditure and underutilisation of allocated money, and even mishandling of and damage to invaluable and rare works of art, sculpture and other memorabilia. The letter raises questions about a sum of nearly Rs 100 crore allocated to the mus­eum for renovation work, which 바카라�remains unaccounted for바카라�. Furthermore, to bring the governor바카라�s notice to slackness concerning the safekeeping of the precious collections at the museum, Mukherji writes, 바카라�It is generally known that only five to six per cent of the total number of art objects in a museum are put on display.... The rest are kept in separate res­erves and exhibitions take place on rotation basis. IMK바카라�s collections exceed one hundred thousand items. Obviously, a large number of objects at any given time are stored in reserves. These reserves are not just in a ramshackle condition, simple security mechanisms such as CCTV cameras have also not been installed, making these vulnerable to theft and burglary.바카라� He points out that this is all the more shocking considering that break-INS, thefts and burglaries have already taken place on more than one occasion.

Another IMC official goes to the ext­ent of suggesting that this is not mere negligence, but a deliberate ploy to keep the option of siphoning off of valuable materials open. 바카라�In the past items have been stolen and there was no record of who entered and went out of the vaults. That there were no CCTV cameras to guard the safes was one of Sunil바카라�s biggest com­plaints,바카라� says the officer. 바카라�But for some reason, the authorities seem reluctant to take this most basic security measure.바카라�

In an interview to Outlook (see box), Dr Jayanta Sengupta, who has been given additional charge of the museum since 2015, replies to the allegations against the institute he heads, though IMK workers who make the charges are quick to point out that the soft-spoken professor and scholar, also director of the iconic Victoria Memorial Hall, is himself not culpable. 바카라�He is a gentleman who is trying to revive the cultural tradition of IMK, but the museum is crumbling from within because of corruption at various lev­­els; criminal gangs are controlling money laundering rackets inside,바카라� an IMK official says. 바카라�We believe our colleague Sunil Upadhyay was silenced be­c­ause he knew too much and because he raised his voice. And those who removed him are still lurking in these corridors.바카라�