Shimla, Nov 29 (IANS) The Himachal Pradesh police Sunday said they have made a major breakthrough in stalling the auction in London of a George Cross, stolen in 2002 from the recipient soldier’s widow, with the arrest of the man who had submitted an affidavit to the auctioneer claiming he had been gifted the medal.
“We have succeeded in arresting Kirpal Singh from Moga town (in Punjab) this (Sunday) evening. He has been named by the auction house (Dix Noonan Webb) as the man who had submitted an affidavit that the medal was gifted to him by the recipient’s widow,” Bilaspur’s Superintendent of Police Kuldeep Sharma told IANS over phone.

He said the arrest was a major breakthrough in stalling the auction of the gallantry medal in London Dec 2.

The medal, Britain’s highest decoration for bravery other than in combat, was awarded posthumously to Naik Kirpa Ram of the Frontier Force Rifles in 1946.

Ram’s widow, Brahmi Devi, received the medal from the then Viceroy of India, Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, when she was just 13.

However, the medal was stolen from her house in Bharpal village in Bilaspur district in 2002 and she reported the matter to the police. The police had closed the case after a few years as the medal could not be traced.

When Brahmi Devi came to know last week that the medal has been listed for the auction, she reported the matter to the state police.

The state police have asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take up the matter with Interpol in order to recover the stolen medal. They also established contact with the auctioneers and requested them to stall the auction as the medal is actually a stolen one and its auction is illegal.

Nimrod Dix, managing director of Dix Noonan Webb, has informed the state police that the auction house has an April 2000 affidavit from Brahmi Devi, in which she says she was “unable to keep this medal” and was, therefore, making a gift of it to a man named Kirpal Singh “with my sweet will”.

Brahmi Devi describes Kirpal Singh as a collector and the son of Makhan Singh of Moga.

In his affidavit, signed June 2000, Kirpal Singh says he received the medal as a gift for “services I have provided for the past years” and that he in turn was handing over the medal to S.L. Jain, whom Dix identified as a Delhi-based dealer.

Additional Director General of Police I.D. Bhandari said more arrests would be made soon.

“We have zeroed in on more people in the case. A team has also been sent to Delhi in this regard,” he said.

“We have already established direct contact with the auctioneers in London. They told us to send us all the evidence to substantiate the claim that the medal was a stolen property. We would provide them all the documents in this regard by Monday morning,” Bhandari said.

Brahmi Devi has already denied that she had ever sold the medal to anyone.

“Even though I have been living in abject poverty, I could not have parted with the last remembrance of my husband that I had,” Brahmi Devi told IANS.

The medal could fetch around 20,000 pounds at the auction.