LUDHIANA – Youth Akali Dal leaders Gurdeep Singh Gosha and Meetpal Dugri today blackened the statue of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at Salem Tabri. The duo shot the video of their act and spread it on social media. They sprayed black colour on the face of the statue and red on the hands.
Senior Congress leaders including local MP Ravneet Singh Bittu and district Congress committee chief Gurpreet Singh Gogi, and several party workers reached the spot.
A Congress leader, Gursimran Singh Mand, took off his turban and cleaned the statue. Mand is a former vice-chairman of PPCC’s local bodies cell.
While Gosha has been arrested, raids were on to nab Meetpal, said ADCP Gurpreet Singh Sikand.
Gosha is a member of the YAD core committee and also a former president of district YAD, while Meetpal, is president of the Student Organisation of India, Malwa zone.
Talking to The Tribune over the phone, Gosha alleged: “Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for the 1984 riots. He doesn’t deserve any respect. We have no regrets. We have confessed to our act by filming it and making it viral.”
Asked if he any senior Akali leader was in the loop, he said it was his and his friend Meetpal’s emotions that drove them to vandalise the statue. He said they would also do the same to Rajiv Gandhi’s statues installed elsewhere in the state.
ADCP Gurpreet Singh Sikand said a case under various sections of the IPC, IT Act, and Defacement of Public Property Act had been registered against the culprits.
Vijay Das, an old man who voluntary looks after the statue, said he noticed the two turbaned men blackening the statue around 9.30 am and immediately informed Rakesh Sharif, vice-chairman SC wing of the district Congress.
He said: “The statue was built by his guru Dalu Das in 2006. I have been looking after the same since then. No Congress leader pays attention for its upkeep. Now after the incident, leaders are now flocking to the place and have also sent the MC sanitation employees to clean the statue and its surroundings. I hope the party will take care of the statue in future.”
Bittu alleged that the act was committed by “discarded leaders” to get publicity. “If this was done at the behest of SAD chief Sukhbir Badal, then he should apologise. He should immediately sack these leaders from the party,” the MP demanded.
Ranjit Singh Dhillon, SAD district president, said he respected the emotions of the YAD leaders, but this act could have been avoided.
