A statue stolen out of a San Jose park and then recovered at a scrapyard earlier this year will cost the city up to $100,000 to replace — but no money currently exists to remake it, city officials say.
The likeness of 1600s-era Indian ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj riding a horse, installed over two decades ago as a symbol of friendship between the sister cities of San Jose and Pune, the ninth-most-populous city in India, was swiped from Guadalupe River Park in January. The statue, sawed off at the hooves, was then found days later by this news organization, sitting next to a Coke machine at a metal scrapyard that has had multiple run-ins with law enforcement for years.
A police investigation never found a culprit. The statue is believed to be made of iron and worth up to $800 as scrap metal. It is currently in the city’s custody.
San Jose officials said the sister-city program gets very little funding and cannot cover the cost of remaking the monument, which included a concrete base that featured the 4-foot statue weighing approximately 440 pounds. The cost estimate includes creation and installation of the statue and staff time devoted to the project. The city has received multiple quotes for the replacement.
The high costs are pushing the city to look at other options to commemorate the sister-city relationship that could include a less expensive statue or another symbol.
“The door hasn’t closed on this,” said Carlos Velazquez, a spokesperson for the Office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs. “But we’re holding the door open to see what may come for future opportunities.”
A city of approximately 4 million in the western part of India, Pune started its relationship with San Jose in 1992. Sculptor B.R. Khedkar, since deceased, gifted the Indian ruler statue seven years later.
Suneel Kelkar, president of the San Jose-Pune sister city organization, said it’s important to have some sort of physical presence for the city’s large Indian-American population.
“It is a symbol of our past,” he said of the statue of Shivaji Maharaj, known for founding India’s Maratha Empire. “For everything he did for India.”
In 1999, when the statue was first transferred to the city, it was held in Kelkar’s garage. Thieves broke in and took the statue before disposing of it on a San Jose trail. It was recovered after a jogger ran by it and $1,500 was spent on repairs. Another $3,000 was spent a couple of years later after the figurine was found rusted. When the statue was stolen in January, Kelkar said he was amazed at how the thieves were able to remove it from the park, because he remembers a small crane being used to originally install it.
On Feb. 9, this Bay Area News Group reporter discovered the statue sitting in the lobby of the scrapyard Tung Tai Group. Since 2007, the business has been involved in a sting operation to recover stolen copper, faced felony charges for defrauding the state of millions of dollars, paid fines for buying illegal Cuban metal, and broke environmental regulations on multiple occasions.
The city settled with the scrapyard in June over an undercover operation investigating stolen catalytic converters, with the business agreeing to pay $2,500. The scrapyard’s owner, Joseph Chen, is currently seeking to have separate criminal charges against him dropped.
Source: www.mercurynews.com