A pair of round-rimmed glasses belonging to Mahatma Gandhi, the figurehead of India's independence movement, have gone missing from a museum in western India, news reports said Tuesday.
Managers of the Sevagram Ashram, Gandhi's hermitage near Wardha in the western state of Maharashtra, said Monday that the spectacles had disappeared in November, the Times of India daily reported.
Ashram president Madhao Gadkari said the staff were asked to keep silent about the missing glasses as the ashram authorities conducted an internal investigation, DPA reported.
The glasses were on display in the ashram's museum along with personal items including a rosary, pen-stand and spinning wheel.
Gadkari lodged a police complaint on Monday. He said all other articles were still present.
"The decision not to reveal the theft was taken by ashram inmates. We thought we will ourselves investigate the matter. Else it would have created unnecessary sensation in the public," he said.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan ordered a "high-level" probe into the incident after Wardha officials met with him, the IANS news agency reported.
Gandhi came to Wardha in 1936 to set up the ashram, which still receives around 300,000 visitors every year.
The Quit India resolution calling for independence from the British was adopted by Gandhi's Indian National Congress party at Wardha in July 1942.