Exactly when the statue of Brigadier General John Nicholson disappeared from outside Delhi’s Kashmiri gate, and who took it, is unclear. The same goes for a rock carving in Jammu and Kashmir of the Hindu deity Devi riding a lion; and for the ruins of a copper temple in Arunachal Pradesh on the border with China.

The Indian government has taken steps to catalogue some of the country’s missing monuments and archaeological treasures, but activists insist much more needs to be done to prevent hundreds more monuments from vanishing as India’s cities swell with new residents.