Despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing disapproval over a spate of desecration incidents of statues that started with the pulling down of a statue of Russian revolutionary Lenin in Tripura on Monday, similar incidents appear to be continuing.
On Wednesday night, unidentified miscreants poured paint on a bust of dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar in the Tiruvottiyur area of Chennai. The previous night, a statue of Ambedkar was vandalised in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.
On Thursday morning, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi was found damaged in the Thaliparamba area of Kerala's Kannur district. The spectacles of the statue were damaged. Some media reports claim passers-by had recorded video footage of a lone perpetrator.
After the incident in Tripura, which was blamed on BJP supporters, a statue of Dravidian movement architect E.V. Ramaswamy Periyar was damaged in Tamil Nadu's Vellore district late on Tuesday night. A leader of the BJP in TN had claimed that Periyar statues would be targeted the same way the Lenin monument was brought down.
On Wednesday, a bust of Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was vandalised in south Kolkata by seven people.
(With agency inputs)