Statues to be fished out of lake

Nineteen months after the destruction of the statues on Tank Bund during the Million March, the government has sought the help of the Indian Navy to fish out the pieces of the 12 bronze statues dumped in Hussain Sagar.

“The officials of the Indian Navy from Visakhapatnam have confirmed that they will start fishing out the statues from October 20 after the completion of CoP-11 international biodiverstity meet on Oct 19,” said RV Prasad Raju, director of the Department of Culture.

“We started the project as bronze is a very expensive metal and costs `450 per kg,” he added.

Each vandalised statue weighed around 600 kg, which puts the total weight of 12 statues at 7,200 kg. At the current market rate, this would fetch the government around `32.5 lakh.