No, India, Kohinoor is ours, not yours: Cameron

February 21, 2013  14:04
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British Prime Minister David Cameron says a giant diamond his country forced India to hand over in the colonial era that was set in a royal crown will not be returned.

Speaking on the third and final day of a visit to India aimed at drumming up trade and investment, Cameron ruled out handing back the 105-carat
Kohinoor diamond, now on display in the Tower of London.

The diamond had been set in the crown of the current Queen Elizabeth's late mother.One of the world's largest diamonds, some Indians - including Mahatma Gandhi's grandson - have demanded its return to atone for Britain's colonial past.

"I don't think that's the right approach," Cameron told reporters on Wednesday after becoming the first serving British prime minister to voice regret about one of the bloodiest episodes in colonial India, a massacre of unarmed civilians in the city of Amritsar in 1919. "It is the same question with the Elgin Marbles," he said, referring to the classical Greek marble sculptures that Athens has long demanded be given back. -- Reuters
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