After having nightmares over their heist, the thieves in Uttar Pradesh, India, decided to give the stolen items back to the temple from whence they took them.
The temple in the Chitrakoot area was broken into, and 16 idols of Lord Balaji, an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, were taken, according to the police who investigated the crime last week. One of the idols was ashtadhatu, an alloy composed of gold, silver, iron, lead, zinc, copper, tin, and mercury or antimony. The other idols were primarily made of copper and silver.
The things were handed up to the police on Monday, along with a confession and an apology, so the authorities did not have to put in a lot of effort to retrieve them. The robbers discovered that the objects they stole brought them nothing but bad luck and trouble whenever they used them.
The thieves handed over all of the idols, except two, since they had concluded that the sleepless nights brought on by the remaining wealth were something they could live with.
It is surprisingly common for thieves to give back stuff they have stolen because they think they have been cursed.
Throughout the years, hundreds of artifacts have been removed from the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. In this city, thousands of bodies have been completely preserved due to the volcanic ash and pumice that resulted from an exceptionally violent eruption that occurred thousands of years ago and obliterated everything in its path, including the adjacent town of Herculaneum.
Because so many would-be burglars later feel compelled to return the stolen goods, Pompeii now maintains an exhibition that showcases the stolen goods and the subsequent expressions of guilt accompanying their return.
In 2020, a robber who had previously stolen a sculpture from a Pompeian Domus said in a letter that the figurine had caused an “evil eye in the family” to be released. The statue was a copy, but the thief was under the impression that it was the original.
The so-called “curse of Pompeii” is all nonsense, much like the terror that the thieves of Lord Balaji statues felt. Nevertheless, according to the Italian publication Il Messagero, Nicole from Canada is among those who have decided to return their supposedly cursed items.
She visited Pompeii in 2005 when she was 21 years old, and collected bits of marble, mosaic tiles, and a portion of an amphora (a container with two handles) to have a one-of-a-kind keepsake that “no one could have.”
She brought them back to Canada when the “curse” started affecting the people involved.
Nicole stated in the letter that she intends to make a personal visit to Italy in the future to repent for her actions. Still, she stated that she was returning the items at this time in the hope that doing so would break the curse that had been placed on her and her family.
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