Curator Peshawar Museum and lecturer of archaeology at the University of Peshawar Nidaullah Sehrai highlights the issue of illegal digging and smuggling of artefacts, while talking to Sadia Qasim Shah

A vast area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is rich with archaeological sites dating back to the Gandhara civilisation but the lack of effective measures to check illegal digging and smuggling of artefacts is causing a great damage to many such historic sites, says Nidaullah Sehrai, curator, Peshawar Museum.

The Peshawar Museum housing over 900 Gandhara artefacts has one of the richest collections of its kind, where Sehrai has been deputed as curator.

“There are around 91 protected sites in the province with 35 either occupied or levelled by private owners,” says Sehrai.

Back in September 2011, when Sehrai worked as director of archaeology and museums, he formed a probe team to investigate some illegal diggings in the archaeologically rich Swabi and Mardan districts. The team revealed that artefacts’ smugglers in the garb of builders were carrying out unchecked excavations at Gandhara sites like Sikri, Aziz Dheri, Baaja and Galla among others. Illegal excavations were also visible at Sikri, in Mardan, which is renowned for the discovery of the world famous Gandhara masterpiece of Fasting Buddha on display in Lahore Museum presently.

Judicial action was taken against one such contractor involved in illegal digging at a site in Baja. He was a relic hunter and was apparently testing soil for construction purpose in Baja area of Swabi. The court decided the case in favour of the archaeology department, declaring the site protected. But with the given resources and the vast archaeologically rich area, it is not easy to protect and chase away illegal diggers and smugglers.

Sehrai says that there was a need for stricter laws to curb illegal digging at the archaeological sites. Quoting one more example of another such illegal activity at Maan Singh Dheri in Shabqadar area, he said that by the time the police arrived on the spot, the artefact hunters had levelled the site after removing the artefacts. Lack of evidence usually allows the criminals to go unpunished.

There are 3,000 documented archaeological sites in the province and only 92 are protected. Sadly, only a few have watchmen while the others are not well protected.

Although the department has enough financial resources, there is a human resource shortage, especially of watchmen to keep a watch on the nocturnal relic hunters. In most situations, the department’s watchmen and staff were quite helpless in the face of gun-toting illegal diggers.

The officials did not completely rule out the possibility that artefact smuggling was possibly being carried out in connivance with the government and non-government people. Influential artefact aficionados use their influence or bribe the government officials to misuse their office to let the artefact smugglers work without any check. As far as legal action against such smugglers is concerned, only seven cases of artefact smuggling or illegal digging were reported last year.

Sehrai is disappointed because it is difficult for the department to protect the relics with given resources. People or the private owners of the protected sites should also take responsibility and cooperate with the government to protect the sites from those who want to loot the country of this wealth. People are tempted to dig and destroy archaeological sites because they know the value of these artefacts in the international market.

The Antiquity Act prohibits transfer or sale of antiquities out of the country, as they are national heritage assets. Yet there have been cases and bids of smuggling fake artefacts as genuine and even genuine artefacts were issued NOC as fakes to be sold for millions of dollars abroad. He said that the archaeology department should be more empowered to be able to check this criminal practice.

Sherai believes that there should be stricter laws to protect the relics and separate courts should be set up so that criminals are punished and others may learn lessons from it. “People get away unpunished, the law should be amended to penalise them.”

Artisans in Taxila, Swat and Karachi make replicas of the statues. Sehrai proposed that all statue-makers or carvers who make such replicas should be allowed to do their work only after obtaining an NOC from the government and giving an understanding that they would not sell them as genuine pieces. Each replica should then be tagged as such. “Usually greedy artisans make these replicas with the intention of selling them as genuine relics,” he said.