4 members of the Sambhaji Brigade, who in the early hours of Tuesday vandalised a 54-year-old statue of playwright and humourist Ram Ganesh Gadkari (1885-1919), located at the Sambhaji Park on the Jangali Maharaj Road, were arrested soon after
The CCTV footage shows the vandals took hammers to the statue, first established at the park in 1962, to fell it
Pune: 4 members of the Sambhaji Brigade, who in the early hours of Tuesday vandalised a 54-year-old statue of playwright and humourist Ram Ganesh Gadkari (1885-1919), located at the Sambhaji Park on the Jangali Maharaj Road, were arrested soon after. They had gone on to throw the statue into a river. The members said that they were forced to act after their pleas to remove the statue fell on deaf ears.
The members had first posted about destroying the statue on Facebook at around 8 am on Tuesday morning. They said that four members — Pradeep Kanse (25), a businessman, Harshavardhan Mahadev Mugdum (23), a resident of Balajinagar, Swapnil Suryanakant Kale (24), from Wadmukh wadi and Ganesh Karale — had vandalised the statue and that they would be voluntarily surrendering before the police at around 11 am. However, based on the CCTV footage, the police arrested them before they could surrender. Additionally, the garden superintendent of Pune Municipal Corporation also filed a case in the matter with the Deccan Gymkhana police station.
Grouse with humorist
According to the Sambhaji Brigade, the youth wing of the Maratha Seva Sangh, the 20th century poet had defamed Maratha rule Sambhaji Maharaj in one of his 20th century plays. Placing Gadkari’s statue inside the Sambhaji Park was only insult to injury, the members claimed. “Gadkari had said that Maharaj was an alcoholic and womaniser. But, he is one of the few kings to have fought over 150 battles. He was also a literature lover and had written four books, but that had never been written about in the play,” said Santosh Shinde, head of Pune district of Sambhaji Brigade.
“For the last seven years, we have been requesting the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the former Congress government to remove the statue from the park. But, nobody paid heed,” he added.
Cops say
Senior inspector Ajay Kadam of Deccan Gymkhana police station, said, “The incident took place at around 1.40 am. Four of them climbed the gate illegally and committed this offence; they also have two priors against them. They have all been arrested and on Wednesday, will be produced before court for remand hearing.”
City acts fast
Meanwhile, PMC additional commissioner Rajendra Jagtap has issued notices to two security guards, blaming them for the lapse in security that led to the incident. As an added measure, Mayor Prashant Jagtap also assured that the statue would be restored and replaced and that the space till then would be occupied by an oil painting of Gadkari.
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