Binaj Gurubacharya

A 700-year-old standing statue of the Buddha, that was returned to Nepal from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, is pictured in its delivery crate at the Department of Archaeology in Kathmandu on April 4, 2018.<br />
A pair of rare idols stolen from Nepal three decades ago were returned to the country April 4 by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The two statues — one of the Buddha and the other of the Hindu god Shiva and his wife Parvati — were stolen from Nepal in the 1980s when rampant looting saw many important artifacts whisked out of the country and into the hand of private collectors.<br />
/ AFP PHOTO / Gopen RAI (Photo credit should read GOPEN RAI/AFP via Getty Images)

400-year-old sculptures return to Nepal after New York immigrants spotted them in the Brooklyn Museum: ‘Our gods were locked in the basement’

By Binaj Gurubacharya and The Associated Press