China News Service, Guangyuan, August 18 (Miao Zhiyong) Recently, "the incident of the theft of dozens of Tang Dynasty cliff stone Buddha statues in Wangcang County, Guangyuan City, Sichuan Province" has attracted widespread attention after being exposed online.

Wangcang County Culture, Tourism and Sports Bureau of Guangyuan City announced on the 18th that on January 29 this year, the county's cultural relics administrative department found that a total of 4 niches and 23 Buddha statues were stolen during an on-site investigation of Moyan statues in Fuziyan Village, Puji Town. Among them, there are 11 heads and 12 full images.

The stolen Buddha statues were located in the niches, most of which were small Buddha statues about 15 cm high and 8 cm wide.

Wangcang County quickly initiated accountability for the cultural relics administrative department and the relevant persons in charge of the territorial towns and towns. At present, 8 people have been organized to deal with and 5 people have been filed for review.

The head of the Buddha statue carved on the cliff was stolen.

Photo courtesy of Wangcang Cultural Tourism

  It is understood that the stolen Buddha statue on the cliff was excavated on a rock wall 1.5 to 5 meters above the ground, 30 meters long and 20 meters high. There were a total of 39 niches and 220 statues and 2 stone carvings.

The excavated dynasty was the Tang Dynasty, arranged horizontally from north to south, and the niches were all square double-mouth niches.

In June 2007, it was announced as a provincial-level cultural relics protection unit by the Sichuan Provincial People's Government.

  On the day of the incident, the cultural relics administration department of Wangcang County immediately reported the case to the local public security agency in accordance with relevant regulations.

Guangyuan City quickly launched the "Emergency Plan for Cultural Relics Safety in Guangyuan City" and organized a special work team. Wangcang County established a task force to coordinate and fully carry out case investigation.

The task force visited local villagers, and investigated and sorted out similar cases and key criminal records that had been detected throughout the province. At the same time, they visited Nanjiang County, Meishan City, Banan District, Chongqing City and other places for investigation. Connect with work.

Because the crime scene was located in a remote mountainous area, with dense forests, sparsely populated areas, and no monitoring facilities around, there were very few valuable physical evidence left on the scene, making it difficult to solve the case.

  It is understood that the protection of the Foziyan Cliff Statue has always been assigned by a dedicated person.

The investigation showed that because the relevant personnel did negligence in their duties during the work process, more than 20 statues of Buddha carved on the cliff were stolen and the national cultural relics were lost.

Wangcang County Public Security Bureau issued the "Reward Notice."

Photo courtesy of Wangcang County Public Security Bureau

  "Wangcang County has further added measures, strengthened its work force, and arranged special funds to maintain hidden cultural relics to ensure the safety of cultural relics. At present, monitoring facilities have been installed on the statues of Foziyan cliffs and regular inspections have been carried out." Guangyuan City According to the relevant person in charge of the cultural relics administrative department, the cultural relics administrative department of Guangyuan City has held a special meeting on the matter to conduct an in-depth analysis of the occurrence of the incident, find out the reasons, and continue to cooperate with the public security organs to solve the case, and continue to increase the city’s cultural relics protection units and The law enforcement inspection work of the cultural preservation point rectifies the weak links to ensure the safety of cultural relics.

A large-scale inspection of cultural relics safety will be carried out in Guangyuan City to comprehensively investigate and rectify hidden dangers in cultural relics protection and resolutely prevent similar incidents from happening again.

  "We will continue to increase our efforts to solve the case, find clues, and strive to solve the case as soon as possible and recover the stolen cultural relics." The relevant person in charge of the Guangyuan City Public Security Bureau said that in order to solve the case as soon as possible, on August 9, the Wangcang County Public Security Bureau issued a reward announcement , To openly solicit clues to the case from the public, and to provide clues and play an important role in solving the case, rewards of up to 50,000 yuan will be given.

Currently, the case is still under active investigation.

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