Zurich deposit box can unravel secret about Kohinoor `lost’

state treaties which could prove that the Kohinoor diamond (part of the Queen Mother’s crown) “was obtained from Singh by trickery”. Duleep Singh was eight years old when he was forced to sign a treaty of surrender to the British. The Kohinoor was part of the booty the British claimed. Duleep Singh converted to Christianity and lived in exile in Britain on his estate at Elveden Hall in Suffolk on a “pension” of Å“50,000 a year from the British.

Before his death in Paris in 1893, Duleep Singh re-embraced Sikhism.

He is reported to have been a great favourite with Queen Victoria. However, Duleep Singh described himself as an “implacable foe of the British Government” and he tried unsuccessfully through dealings with Irish nationalists and agents of the Russian Tsar to find ways to reclaim his kingdom.

Duleep Singh’s will which is lodged in the Public Record’s Office in London, according to the paper, “discloses an estate of just Å“7,219” which was left to his sons Victor and Frederick. Duleep Singh’s biographer, Michael Alexander said, “The discovery of the account is very exciting. I will speculate it contains the crown jewels of Lahore, the ones the British never got their hands on. It might have discreetly been discovered by her father and passed on and Catherine just forgot it was there.”

“Duleep Singh, Catherine (Princess)”, is listed as living in Penn, Buckinghamshire. Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh was born in 1871. She was educated at Somerville College, Oxford, never married and died in 1942. Catherine left her modest estate to her sister Sophia, who in turn left whatever she owned to the Battersea Dogs’ Home, a Sikh Girls School in Ferozepur, to some elderly retainers and her sister Bamba, who died in Lahore in 1957. Bamba left only Å“2,766 to her lawyer and “friend of 51 years” Sir Karim Baksh Supra.

All of Duleep Singh’s children died childless and it is felt that many people are likely to make a claim on whatever may be in the account in Zurich. A spokesperson for Maharaja Duleep Singh Project in Birmingham said, “Many people are sure to come forward to make a claim. They will take their family history as far back in history as necessary.”