TEHRAN – Iranian police have recently arrested a blogger on the charge of “destroying” historical objects during his excursion to an ancient remote site in Iran’s southeast Sistan-Baluchestan province.

The blogger appeared on social media days ago demonstrating fragments of human skeletons he had found as he had reportedly made puzzles out of the human remains. His posts, however, prompted waves of disapproval from social-media users.

“Recent actions taken by a tourism blogger in Sistan-Baluchestan cannot be ignored… and the police respond to whom commit crimes against the cultural heritage in the cyberspace,” CHTN quoted a senior police official in charge of protecting cultural heritage, as saying on Tuesday. 

The culprit is handed over to the judicial system for further investigation and trial, the police official said.

The collective Sistan-Baluchestan Province -- Sistan in the north and Baluchestan in the south -- accounts for one of the driest regions of Iran with a slight increase in rainfall from east to west, and an obvious rise in humidity in the coastal regions. In ancient times, the region was a crossword of the Indus Valley and the Babylonian civilizations.

The province possesses special significance because of being located in a strategic and transit location, especially Chabahar which is the only ocean port in Iran and the best and easiest access route of the middle Asian countries to free waters.

For mainstream Iranians, the name of Sistan-Baluchestan conjures up stories of drought, desiccated wetlands, and dust storms. On the international scale, foreigners may consider it a reminiscent of the big red blot on the Iran safety map. The vast province is home to several distinctive archaeological sites and natural attractions, including two UNESCO World Heritage sites, namely Shahr-e-Soukhteh (Burnt City) and Lut desert.

AFM/