The Indian government on Friday launched a search for a treasure claimed to be worth nearly $50 billion, after Swami Shobhan Sarkar, a popular Hindu holy man reported to the country’s central bank that he dreamed of 1,000 tons of gold lying buried beneath a fort dating back to the nineteenth century, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, or UP.

The Archaeological Survey of India, or ASI, which operates under the Ministry of Culture, dispatched a team to Daundia Khera village in Unnao district in UP tasked with finding the treasure within a timeframe of five weeks. Sarkar said the gold belonged to Rao Ram Bux Singh, a nineteenth-century king, and he reported it because he wants to help the country, as it struggles to revive economic growth and to rein in soaring current account deficit, fueled partially by the import of gold.

“I cried the day I realized that India is going to collapse economically,” Sarkar told the Mail Today. The dead king’s spirit wants people to dig up the gold, he added, and said: “It is a hidden treasure for the country.”

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