Dr BR Ambedkar’s statue found vandalised in Visakhapatnam

Andhra Pradesh’s Pedagantyada area woke up to a series of protests from regional political parties and followers of Dr BR Ambedkar on 5 December. The protests were raised as an outrage against miscreants who had allegedly vandalised a statue of Ambedkar in the area. While the miscreants remain unidentified, the police have said that the incident happened in the late hours of Tuesday night.

Reportedly, G Gurumurthy, a resident of the area, and the president of the Babu Jagjivan Ram Welfare Society had filed the complaint, noticing parts of the statue’s nose and ear broken. A thorough inquiry of the matter has been demanded by the residents.

The event came to light a day before Ambedkar’s 62nd death anniversary, which falls on 6^th December. This upset many locals who took to the streets to raise slogans and demand justice.

The police have registered a case under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and Section 427 (Mischief causing damage) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Meanwhile, the police force has also been deployed in the village as a precautionary measure.

This is not the first time that such an incident has come to light. Statues of Ambedkar were recently found vandalized in Ambala, Lucknow, and Ballia. Earlier this year, the statues in Meerut, Budayan, Moradabad, Firozabad, Saharanpur, Keshanakaru and Bulandshahr were also found damaged.

Cases of vandalizing of statues of Dr BR Ambedkar are being registered under laws of a constitution that he himself was instrumental in drafting.