The Tirupur District (Rural) Police on Tuesday arrested a man for vandalising the statue of Dravidian leader E.V. Ramasamy (Periyar) at Dharapuram on Monday.
According to the police, K. Naveen Kumar, a native of Thalavaipattinam, has confessed that he had vandalised the statue as he disliked Periyar.
The police said that Kumar had gone to the Island Ground Park, where the bronze statue is situated, in the early hours of Monday and spat on it and hit it with a stone.
Before leaving the spot, he left a pair of footwear on the statue.
The footwear and the slight damages to the statue came to the attention of Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) functionaries when they went there on Monday morning to pay respect to their leader on his birth anniversary. Based on their complaint, Dharapuram police registered a case and arrested Kumar on Tuesday.
Visuals from a CCTV camera showed Kumar entering the Island Ground Park around 3 a.m., and it helped the police to zero in on the suspect. Kumar was produced before the Judicial Magistrate Court, Dharapuram, and remanded in judicial custody.