A statue of social reformer and Dravidian movement icon EV Ramasamy, popularly known as "Periyar", was found damaged in a village in Pudukottai on Tuesday, the latest in a series of similar incidents of vandalism.The head of the statue was found cut and placed near a traffic roundabout, police said. According to reports, a CRPF jawan has been arrested in connection with the beheading of the statue. 

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

It's not so far clear, what prompted him to cause harm to the statue. The jawan, Senthil Kumar has told police that he was drunk, according to reports. Police is looking if he did it on his own or if others too were involved with himThe vandalism drew condemnation from Congress president Rahul Gandhi, DMK working president M K Stalin and top actor Rajinikanth. Police said district authorities restored the statue to its original state within hours of the incident.

A large contingent of police has been deployed in the area to prevent any untoward incident, police said, adding a case has been registered. Gandhi in a tweet said "when the RSS & BJP encouraged the tearing down of Lenin statues in Tripura, they signalled their cadres to destroy statues of those who opposed their ideology, like Periyar, the great social reformer who fought for the Dalits. His statue too was destroyed today in Tamil Nadu." He also posted a picture of a headless Periyar statue.

Stalin charged the government with being 'just a spectator' and said if appropriate action had been taken against BJP leader H Raja's comments that Periyar statues should be removed, the vandalism could have been averted. "This government is just a spectator and that is the truth," he told reporters. Stalin, also Leader of Opposition in the assembly, said "they (vandalised) did it at night and if they had done it in broad daylight, they would have got punishment for it." He said the "crowd of cowards who are trying to enter Tamil Nadu through the rear entrance are miscalculating that by destroying Periyar's statue his ideology could also be struck off."

With PTI inputs