Buddha statue stolen from northern Vietnam pagoda found near road

• Thieves pinch valuable Buddha statue in northern Vietnam

Police have tracked down a Buddha statue stolen from a pagoda in Hung Yen Province.

The statue turned up on a roadside in Van Giang District, roughly 8km from the Me So Pagoda, Lao Dong newspaper reported Saturday.

Le Ngoc Anh, the head of Me So Village told reporters that thieves cut off the statue’s 1,113 hands and claimed that it would soon be restored.

Nguyen Dong Binh, chairman of the commune People’s Committee told the daily that an investigation remains underway.

Images from a security camera recorded a group of four to five thieves boosting the statue from the second floor of the pagoda at 1 a.m. on September 29. 

One member of the crew threw a piece of cloth over the camera, while his accomplices carried the statue to a waiting vehicle.

The statue, which stands 2.8 meters tall, was previously stolen, and recovered, in 1988.

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