After Lenin’s statue was removed in Tripura and Periyar’s statue was vandalised in Tamil Nadu, statues of B.R. Ambedkar were vandalised and damaged in parts of Uttar Pradesh.
At least four such incidents have been reported from Aligarh and Meerut in the past two days.
The latest incident was reported from the Mawana area of Meerut, where an Ambedkar statue was damaged early on Wednesday.
It led to an agitated group of Dalits protesting and blocking the main road. The police have filed an FIR against unidentified culprits and replaced the damaged statue with a new one. The situation is now under control.
The statues of Ambedkar in the Gandhi Park area and in a park in the Ghantaghar area of Aligarh were found broken on March 5.
Finger broken
Some unidentified miscreants had broken the raised finger of the statues in both the places.
As the news broke, a large group of Dalits and local Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) workers staged dharnas outside the parks and later blocked a national highway, leading to minor skirmishes between protesters and officials. The protesters were persuaded to call off the protest after officials fixed the statues with a new finger.
Local BSP workers registered an FIR and demanded that the district administration pay six months’ wages due to the night guards deployed at the parks.
Last year, the Dalit community’s call to install a statue of Ambedkar and the objection of the Thakur community to the proposal led to major caste violence.
