On Thursday, the Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao announced the State Government would retrieve the jewels of the Nizams of Hyderabad. The AIMIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi urged the CM to bring the jewels back from Delhi.
Owaisi was quoted saying, “The Nizam’s jewelry is the identity of Hyderabad. If we get back the jewelry, the identity of Hyderabad will come back. As per the Centre’s rules and regulations and the Supreme Court’s directions, the jewelry can be brought back if any member of the royal family is willing to hand over the King Koti Palace to keep the jewelry in safe custody. The State Government should pursue the case with the Centre seriously and ensure the jewelry comes back here.”
The Nizam Osman Ali Khan’s 150 pieces of jewels which Owaisi is trying to recover is in the RBI vault in Delhi. The total cost of the jewels is estimated at a several thousand crores.
A city based historian, Mohammad Safiullah said, “The jewels are all heirlooms that were passed on through the Asaf Jahi dynasty, to which Osman Ali Khan belonged. In today’s world, I would pin the worth of the jewelry at roughly Rs. 50,000 crore.”
For the State Government to recover the jewels it will need to first have a suitable building with adequate security to showcase the historic jewels. The last time the Nizam’s jewels came to Hyderabad was in 2006. They were displayed in Salar Jung Museum in the city and gathered massive crowds.
Back in 2014, the former wife of Prince Mukarram Jah (Nizam,) Princess Esra made the same request to CM KCR who didn’t pay heed to her request. But now, all of a sudden, KCR seems to be adamant to retrieve the lost heritage of Hyderabad.
