Ambedkar statue vandalised, BJP leaders ‘purify’ Mookerjee bust
A statue of Dalit icon BR Ambedkar was on Friday found vandalised by miscreants in a village in Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, sparking tension, police said.
A district official said the miscreants damaged the statue in Kanhawaali village while it was dark. Inspector Bhagwan Mehar and sub-divisional magistrate Kaustubh Mishra visited the spot to pacify protesters, mostly Dalits.
Authorities said the statue of Ambedkar was damaged in the past too, adding that a dispute was on between two villagers over the land on which it had been installed.
Police said the vandalism could be a result of this dispute. “We are trying to trace the miscreants,” the official said.
STATUE PURIFIED IN KOLKATA
Prevented from reaching the statue of Syama Prasad Mookerjee in south Kolkata on Thursday, BJP leaders purified the statue of the founder of Jan Sangh in Howrah not far from the state secretariat on Friday.
Party leaders poured milk and water from the Ganges in a symbolic purification to protest against the vandalism of his statue in Kolkata on Wednesday when a group of seven students broke the right ear and eye of the half bust statue at Keoratala crematorium to protest the demolition of Communist icon Vladimir Lenin’s statues in Tripura following the BJP’s victory.
“We did not face any resistance from anyone on Friday morning. The exercise was conducted on a statue of Syama Prasad Mookerjee that is located on a piece of land adjacent to our party office at Mandirtala,” said Sayantan Basu, general secretary of BJP’s Bengal unit.
“The party workers will conduct similar programmes in different areas of Bengal during the day,” added Basu.
Though BJP Bengal leaders took up the programme to purify the statue on Thursday afternoon in south Kolkata, policemen and ruling Trinamool Congress supporters prevented them from reaching the spot. Several party supporters were beaten up and the police arrested a few dozens of them.
On Friday morning after 8 sm, the saffron party supporters assembled near Mookerjee’s statue at Mandirtala in Howrah and carried out their programme.
They poured applied sandalwood paste on the forehead and garlanded the statue after pouring milk and water.
DEHRADUN/KOLKATA: