COLOMBO: Miscreants decapitated the statues of Mahatma Gandhi and the founder of the international scout movement, Robert Baden-Powell, in the Sri Lankan town of Batticaloa on Thursday night, residents said.
“The incident is shocking particularly because Batticaloa’s main police station is just 250 metres away and the army patrols the area at night,” said S Yogeswaran, Batticaloa district MP from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).
Yogeswaran told Express that the people of the predominantly Tamil town were shocked when they saw the headless statues with the broken pieces scattered about on Friday morning.
Statues of two great Tamil scholars, Swami Vipulananda and Periyathambi Pillay, located elsewhere in the town, were also damaged, he said. “Swami Vipulananda was Annamalai University’s first Professor of Tamil, and Periyathambi Pillay was known as Pulavar Mani,” Yogeswaran said.
Some months ago, a statue of Swami Vivekananda located on the border between Batticaloa and the Muslim town of Kathankudy, was broken. Investigations into that case had proved to be futile.