The New Indian Express ·
From temple to auction house: The long journey of India’s stolen idols
Subhash Chandra Kapoor once ran Art of the Past, a Madison Avenue gallery that traded in South and Southeast Asian antiquities. Investigators later linked his peripatetic network to more than 2,500 stolen objects worth over $143 million.
On September 9, 2026, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court ordered his repatriation to Germany, closing one part of a case that began with a temple burglary in Tamil Nadu and grew into a global antiquities conundrum. The order came after Kapoor filed a habeas corpus petition, arguing that the sentence tied to his extradition had already run out, and that his continued detention in India was unlawful.
What did the Madras High Court order on September 9, 2026?
