After having nightmares about the crime, thieves have returned stolen items to a shrine in Uttar Pradesh, India. Thieves stole 16 statues of Lord Balaji, an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, from a temple in the Chitrakoot district last week, according to authorities. The idols were mostly made of copper and silver, with one made of ashtadhatu, a gold, iron, silver, lead, copper, zinc, tin, antimony, and mercury alloy.
The things were returned on Monday with a confession and an apology, so police didn’t have to spend any effort retrieving them. The robbers discovered that the goods in their possession were bringing them bad luck. According to the Times of India, the criminals wrote in an accompanying letter, “We have been suffering from nightmares since we committed the robbery and have not been able to sleep, eat, or live quietly.” “We’ve had enough of the terrifying dreams and have returned your ‘amaanat’ (valuables).”
The robbers returned all but two of the idols, obviously determining that 1/8th of the nightmares associated with the remaining loot were acceptable. Returning products because they believe they have been cursed is surprisingly prevalent.
Thousands of remains are perfectly preserved by volcanic ash and pumice from an exceptionally violent eruption that swept out everything, including adjacent town Herculaneum, thousands of years ago. Hundreds of objects have been removed from Pompeii throughout the years. So many thieves return the goods after feeling they have been cursed by them that Pompeii has a permanent exhibition of these items and the regret that goes with them.
One burglar returned a figurine stolen from a Pompeian domus in 2020, stating in a letter that it had brought an “evil eye” on the family. The thief was unaware that the statue was a copy. The “curse of Pompeii” is bogus, just as the thieves’ terror of Lord Balaji statues. Nicole from Canada, according to the Italian publication Il Messagero, is among those returning their cursed things. She had removed mosaic tiles, bits of marble, and a portion of an amphora (a two-handled pitcher) from Pompeii in 2005, when she was 21 years old, because she wanted a one-of-a-kind souvenir that “no one else could have.”
She returned them to Canada, where the “curse’s” events began to unfold. “I picked a piece of history that had become crystallized through time and had a great deal of bad energy. People have perished in such a horrific way, and I’ve stolen bits from that desolate country “Il Messagero saw her writing in a letter.
“Since then, bad luck has been playing tricks on my family and me. I’m 36 years old and have had breast cancer twice, the most recent of which resulted in a double mastectomy. My family and I were also experiencing financial difficulties. We are nice people, and I don’t want this curse to be passed on to my children or family.” Nicole pledged in the letter that she would travel to Italy to personally apologize one day, but that she was returning them now in the hopes that it would help “Shake off the curse that has befallen my family and myself. Accept these artifacts so that you can make amends for the error I committed.”
