A group of miscreants have vandalised a statue of Mahatma Gandhi outside the Indian embassy in the US with graffiti and spray painting. The embassy officials registered a complaint with the local law enforcement agencies. The incident took place on night of June 2 and 3 in Washington DC.
The Indian embassy has informed the State Department and registered a complaint with local law enforcement agencies, which are now conducting an investigation into the incident. Efforts are on to clean up the site at the earliest.
Vandalism of the statue of Gandhiji came in connection with the countrywide riots that erupted after custodial killing of African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.
In Washington DC, the rioters had burnt a historic church and damaged some of the prime properties. They also vandalised historic places like the national monument and Lincoln Memorial.
According to the Indian Embassy website, the sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi is cast in bronze as a statue to a height of 8 feet 8 inches. The embassy received the statue as a gift from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). In October 1998, the US Congress had authorised the government of India to establish and maintain a memorial “to honour Mahatma Gandhi on Federal land in the District of Columbia.”
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