Kohinoor was found near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, possibly in the 13th century. It was first owned by the Kakatiya dynasty.


Kakatiya dynasty

In the early 14th century, Alauddin Khilji, second ruler of the Turkic Khilji dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, began looting the kingdoms of southern India. Malik Kafur, Khilji’s general, made a successful raid on Warangal in 1310, when he acquired the diamond.

It remained in the Khilji dynasty and later passed to the succeeding dynasties of the Delhi Sultanate, until it came into the possession of Babur, a Turco-Mongol warlord, who invaded India and established the Mughal Empire in 1526.


Babur

Following the 1739 invasion of Delhi by Nader Shah, the Shah of Persia, the treasury of the Mughal Empire was looted. Along with a host of valuable items, the Shah also carried away the Kohinoor.

After the assassination of Nader Shah in 1747, the stone came into the hands of one of his generals Ahmad Shah Durrani, who later became the Emir of Afghanistan.


Nader Shah

One of Ahmad’s descendants Shuja Shah Durrani, wore a bracelet containing the Kohinoor on the occasion of Mountstuart Elphinstone’s visit to Peshawar in 1808.

In 1809, Shuja went to Lahore, where the founder of the Sikh empire Maharaja Ranjit Singh, in return for his hospitality, insisted upon the gem being given to him, and he took possession of it in 1813.

Its new owner, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, willed the diamond to the Hindu temple of Jagannath in Puri, in modern-day Odisha. However, after his death in 1839, the East India Company did not execute his will.

On March 29, 1849, following the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Sikh War, the Kingdom of Punjab was formally annexed to British India, and the Last Treaty of Lahore was signed, officially ceding the Kohinoor to Queen Victoria and the Maharaja’s other assets to the company.


Lord Dalhousie

The government of India, believing the gem was rightfully theirs, first demanded the return of the Kohinoor as soon as independence was granted in 1947.

In July 2010, while visiting India, Prime Minister of UK David Cameron said of returning the diamond, “if you say yes to one, you suddenly find the British Museum would be empty. I am afraid to say, it is going to have to stay put”.

In April 2016, the Supreme Court of India heard a case for the return of the diamond. Giving evidence to the court, the Solicitor General of India said “the diamond was given voluntarily by Ranjit Singh to the British as compensation for help in the Sikh wars. The Kohinoor is not a stolen object.”