Thieves broke into the New Delhi home of India’s 2014 Nobel Peace laureate Kailash Satyarthi, and stole a replica of his prize medal, police said on Tuesday.
Police official Romil Baniya told a foreign news agency the replica was stolen from the south Delhi home of the children’s rights activist in an early morning burglary. “We have launched an investigation to nab the culprits,” said Baniya, a deputy commissioner of police in the Indian capital.
Other gifts and certificates besides the replica were also stolen, said Rakesh Senger, director of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan, the movement started by Satyarthi, who is travelling overseas to attend a conference. He could not immediately be reached for comment.
Satyarthi’s Nobel medal has been on display in a museum at the palace of Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, after the laureate decided to dedicate the medal to the nation in 2015.
Satyarthi, 63, gave up a career as an electrical engineer in 1980 to campaign against child labour. Since then he has led numerous peaceful protests and demonstrations to draw attention to the plight of children exploited for financial gain.
Prior to Satyarthi’s loss, the Nobel prize certificate and medal of a previous Indian laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, who won the 1913 Literature prize, were stolen in 2004 from the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University in West Bengal. They have never been recovered.
