Burglars steal India's last Olympic hockey gold in Bengaluru

Burglars broke into the Bengaluru home of M.M. Somaya and took the gold medal he won at the 1980 Moscow Olympics — the last Olympic hockey gold India has won.

Somaya, a half-back who represented India at three Olympics and captained the side at Seoul in 1988, was travelling with his family to Kodagu when two men forced the door of his house in the city's HAL 3rd stage area on October 28. A neighbour's camera recorded them entering at 2.34 am, one in a blue shirt, one in a red one. The burglary came to light when neighbours noticed the door standing open.

The haul included the 1980 gold, a silver from the 1982 Asian Games in New Delhi, bronzes from the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul and the 1982 Champions Trophy in Amsterdam, 30,000 rupees in cash, and gold and silver ornaments. The first information report values the lot at 3.53 lakh rupees — the paperwork prices the Moscow medal as metal.

That figure is all the thieves can collect. India's 1980 title was its record-extending eighth Olympic hockey gold, and no Indian team has won the tournament since, so the medal cannot be re-earned, re-issued or resold at anything like its meaning: the only buyer who valued it was the man it was taken from. Somaya, who received the Arjuna Award in 1985 and captained India to the Peugeot Cup in Nairobi in 1988, joins the list of athletes whose medals are worth more in a display case than in any market.

The 30,000 rupees in cash will spend. The ornaments can be melted. The four medals are the only items in the report whose value cannot be recovered through any transaction the thieves can conduct.

Police have registered the case at Indiranagar police station under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provisions for house-breaking and theft in a dwelling. The two men in the blue and red shirts have not been identified.