No leads on Gandhi’s ‘missing’ belongings

GANDHINAGAR - Investigations into a complaint about the theft of some personal belongings of Mahatma Gandhi from the Kasturbadham memorial near Rajkot in Gujarat seem to have reached a deadend due to lack of records related to the exhibits.

Investigating officers Sunday said they were handicapped by the absence of proper records to prove that Gandhi’s belongings were indeed kept at the memorial.

Police started their probe July 3.

The Kasturba Ashram Trust, which runs the memorial, did not maintain records of the items entrusted to it. “There is also no record of resolutions passed from time to time by the trust,” an official source said.

Manager of Kasturbadham Jaysinh Rathod had last month claimed that some personal belongings of Mahatma Gandhi exhibited at the memorial had gone missing.

In his affidavit filed with the joint charity commissioner, Rajkot, the manager had accused a trustee of taking away the personal articles of the Mahatma and charged him with auctioning them in the US.

Following the allegation, the state’s home department ordered an inquiry.

Investigating officers who recorded the statements of several people connected to the trust have, however, not found corroboration of the allegations made by Rathod.

The building that houses the Kasturbadham acquired its name because Mahatma Gandhi’s wife Kasturba was kept under house arrest during the freedom struggle. The building was later converted into a memorial.