Black ink thrown on Jawaharlal Nehru's statue in West Bengal

Pic courtesy: ANI

KOLKATA: In the recent incident of statue defacing and vandalism, a statue of Jawaharlal Nehru - the first prime minister of India - was damaged in Katwa's Telephone Maidan in West Bengal. Black ink was thrown on his sculptor.

Police rushed to the spot immediately after receiving the information. The statue was later cleaned.

Earlier this week, a statue of Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mukherjee was found vandalised in Assam's Kokrajhar. Also, a life-size statue of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, a prominent poet during the 19th century Bengal renaissance, was found defaced in Raniganj of West Bengal's Purba Bardhaman district.

According to police and eye-witnesses, Dutt's face was smudged with red colour by unknown miscreants. The incident triggered condemnation in the political circles as also among the locals.

Several incidents of statue vandalism have been reported from various parts of the country over the last few days.

Earlier in the day, the statue of Dalit icon BR Ambedkar was damaged with its head destroyed completely.

On Friday, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's statue was defaced in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur. The white statue was smeared with red colour.

Earlier, two statues of Vladimir Lenin was demolished in Tripura – one razed by a mob at Sabroom Motor Stand in Agartala and another by a bulldozer at Belonia College Square in a Tripura town. 

Following the vandalism of the idols of the Communist icon, a statue of Dravidian ideologue ‘Periyar’ EV Ramasamy was damaged in Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. This was followed by defacing statues of Dr BR Ambedkar in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh and Mahatma Gandhi in Taliparamba in Kannur district of Kerala.

Miscreants also targeted Lord Hanuman's statue in Kharuav village in Uttar Pradesh's Balia. A poster was stuck on the idol.