Kolkata: Now it was the statue of a prominent poet-playwright of Bengal Michael Madhusudan Dutt, found vandalised on Friday night. The white statue was noticed coated with red ink on Saturday morning in West Burdwan district of Bengal.
However, the civic body authorities were prompt in action and quickly cleaned the statue. “We are trying to find out the identity of the culprits. We have told the police to take strong steps, “ said Jiten Tewari, the mayor of Asansol Municipal Corporation. “It is a matter of great shame that the statue of the poet was defaced,” he said.
According to a report by HT, the Local BJP leaders also condemned the act. In past few weeks, the incidents of statue vandalism are taking place all over the country. The series of events started with the demolition of two statues of the leader of the Russian revolution, Vladimir Lenin, in Tripura on March 6 following BJP’s win in the state.
With this, statues of personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, social reformer E V Ramaswamy’s, Subhas Chandra Bose were destroyed. The recent incident had happened, when even the Prime minister Narendra Modi’s statue was found ‘nose-less’ in UP’s Kaushambi.
Dutt is regarded as a pioneer in Bengali literature. He was the first to write Bengali plays in the English style, segregating the play into acts and scenes. He also studied Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Hebrew, Latin and Greek. He had converted to Christianity in his youth.