Gold hunt over, ASI stops Unnao excavation

The gold hunt inspired by seer Shobhan Sarkar’s dream has finally come to an end on Thursday with the Archaeological Survey of India deciding to call off the excavation at Daundia Kheda in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh.

The gold hunt inspired by seer Shobhan Sarkar’s dream has finally come to an end on Thursday with the Archaeological Survey of India deciding to call off the excavation at Daundia Kheda in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh.

The excavation work was carried out on Thursday but after the order, the digging will come to halt till further orders.

Archaeological Survey of India additional director general D R Mani told HT that this was a trial exploration and could be called off any time. “Since the exploration at two trenches has been completed, we have decided to call it off for the time being,” he said.

Superintendent archaeologist of ASI’s Lucknow circle PK Mishra, however, said that the digging was being stopped temporarily because of Moharram and Kartik Purnima.”We cannot say what will happen after that.”

A final decision will be taken when the director-general of ASI Pravin Srivastava returns to India. ASI officials and the culture minister had earlier said repeatedly that they were not searching for gold.

“Our excavation has scientific basis. This is reported to be an ancient settlement site which has the potential of being an important archaeological location.

The Geological Survey of India had indicated the possibility of finding non-conducting, metallic contents and/or some alloys at a depth of 5 to 20 m,” the officials had said.