Unnao: Digging resumes after break, govt says no treasure hunt

After a day's break, the much-hyped "gold hunt" at the fort of Raja Rao Ram Bux Singh here resumed today, even as the Central government said the exercise is aimed at locating weapons used by Indians in the 1857 mutiny.
SDM Vijay Shanker Dubey said that 25 cm of digging was done today and with this, a total of 217 centimetres of excavation has been done so far. A nail, broken bangles and some pottery has so far been recovered from the digging site.
Earlier today, Union Culture Minister Chandresh Kumari Katoch said the ASI is not digging for gold but trying to locate weapons used by Indians in the 1857 mutiny.

"We have a report from GSI saying that there is an alloy in this area. Alloy can be anything. I cannot say whether it is gold, silver or steel," Katoch said.
"There can be guns or idols. We are trying to locate the weapons used by Indians in the mutiny which we don't have any in our museum or stores. We are trying to find something which is connected to the mutiny and used by the Indians," she said.
The excavation had begun on October 18 after a seer, Shobhan Sarkar, saw in his dreams that 1,000 tonnes of gold was supposed to be buried under the ruins of the 19th century fort.

Besides making it a big media event, the entire exercise has also drawn criticism from various quarters, with questions raised over the rationale behind it.
Meanwhile, some locals today burnt effigy of JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav, whose party, JD(U) had yesterday lodged a complaint against Union Minister Charan Das Mahant for "misusing" his official position to "spread superstition".