MARDAN, Feb 20: The federal government directorate of archaeology started excavating Chargul site, 18 kilometres from here, in the last week of the current month.

Chargul is one of the world class sites related to various cultures and civilizations including Gandhara, Greeko-Bactrian, Hindu Shahi, Kushan and Islamic period, which is situated in Mardan Tehsil, 18 kilometres from Mardan and 83 kilometres away from Peshawar, the NWFP.

A gang of local smugglers had illegally excavated the site in the last July, and recovered two rare statues including one inscribed with ‘Buddha’ which they sold to a prominent smuggler of Peshawar.  

When news about the illegal excavation appeared in the local press, officials of the army monitoring cell headed by Major Ramzan raided the site, and stopped work on the site, but the culprits fled.  

Then Mr Ramzan wrote to the provincial directorate of archaeology and incharge Mardan Museum for legal excavation, but no attention was given to the matter.

A source talking to Dawn, expressed his wonder that though excavation of the Chargul site falls under the jurisdiction of the North West Frontier Province, the work was started bypassing the provincial government.

The source claimed that the federal directorate of archaeology had not informed any one while undertaking the excavation activities of the site, which was extremely important both for the province and for the local area.

He claimed that the two statues dug-out illegally were sold for millions of rupees locally, and then sold out to overseas countries.

The present director of archaeology was Saeedur Rehman who had been also involved in smuggling of antiquities in the past as the local officials had registered a case against him at Takhtbai police station.

The source said, all the people including district Nazim Haji Raza Khan, provincial directorate of archaeology, and even governor, had not been informed about this important issue, which was the violation of the NWFP rights.  

Sculptures on display in the museums of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad had been recovered from the NWFP, and mostly from Mardan where no statue of the area was displayed, he deplored.

He stated that presently a very rare piece of ‘fasting Buddha’ was owned by the Lahore museum.

This statue not only earned millions of rupees every year for the museum both from the local and foreign tourists, but the Japan government took it every after three years for displaying in Tokyo where it attracted millions of dollar.

But the area from where it had been recovered, was being denied rights, he criticized.

Fasting Buddha lying in Lahore museum was recovered during the excavation of Jamal Garhi in Mardan.

He also expressed dissatisfaction over the skill and calibre of the assistant director of the federal archaeology department, Azim Khan, who had started the Chargul site.

Mr Azim could not excavate this world class site technically and safely, he added.