A group of Indian businessmen and actors will reportedly be initiating legal proceedings against Queen Elizabeth II demanding the latter to return the Kohinoor diamond to India, reported PTI.
"Koh-i-Noor", which in Persian means " mountain of light", is said to have been mined in approximately 1100 in the Kollur mine in a village in Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh. The Kohinoor, once said to be the largest diamond in the world, now sits in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth II.
The co-founder of the Indian leisure group Titos, David de Souza, is helping fund a legal action and has even asked lawyers to start high court proceedings, states the report.
"The Koh-i-Noor is one of the many artefacts taken from India under dubious circumstances. Colonisation did not only rob our people of wealth, it destroyed the country’s psyche itself. It brutalised society, traces of which linger on today in the form of mass poverty, lack of education and a host of other factors," PTI quoted De Souza as telling Sunday Telegraph.
The PTI report further states, "The law firm instructed by the campaigners, calling themselves the Mountain of Light group, told the newspaper it would be basing its case on principles enshrined in British law that give institutions the power to return stolen art."
Earlier this year, Indian-origin British MP Keith Vaz had also said the Kohinoor diamond needed to be sent back to where it belonged.