Daily Times

The fiasco around Ghotki-based artist Seffy Soomro’s two stolen paintings has finally come to an end and the artwork has been handed over to him at Frere Hall.

Following a press conference at Karachi’s Frere Hall, on Monday, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) Senior Director of Culture and Sports, Raza Abbas returned the paintings to artist Seffy Soomro, ARY News reported.

Soomro had started a social media campaign to recover his lost paintings, which went missing during his final year at university. The artist claimed that he had sent his two paintings to exhibit at the Sadequiain Gallery in 2017, but they went missing after the event. The artwork was later spotted in a TV drama.

During the press conference, Soomro also claimed for royalty of his artwork, monetized in these seven years. “We demand royalty for our artwork; otherwise, we will exercise our right to legal action,” he said.

However, KMC’s senior director dismissed the artist’s allegation and maintained that the artwork had been in the body’s possession since 2017, but they had no intention to keep it. Therefore, it is being returned to him after all these years.

He termed the artists’s allegations as damaging to their reputation and mentioned that there was a misunderstanding between the paintings’ owner and Frere Hall.

Abbas handed over the paintings to Soomro in the presence of the media to ensure transparency.