Taliban claim efforts to preserve Afghanistan’s Buddhist heritage

Taliban claim efforts to preserve Afghanistan’s Buddhist heritage

Tsering Dhundup DHARAMSHALA, May 3: Afghanistan’s Taliban government has announced initiatives to protect the country’s Buddhist heritage sites and artefacts, departing from their previous stance during their first period of rule. The announcement comes more than two decades after the Taliban’s internationally condemned 2001 destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, two monumental 6th-century statues which represented Vairocana and Sakyamuni (Gautama …