New Delhi: The vandalisation of a Gandhi statue in the Italian city of Brindisi is “deplorable”, Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra has said, adding that the issue was taken up with authorities.
Kwatra said Wednesday that they had seen reports of the defacement. “We understand that a suitable rectification has already taken place… The effort to vandalise this statue, which is, of course deplorable, has been addressed,” he said at the special briefing on the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Italy for the G7 summit from 13-15 June.
Modi is scheduled to fly to Apulia Thursday, on his first overseas trip since becoming the prime minister for a third consecutive term earlier this month.
According to reports, controversial slogans over murdered Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar were scribbled at the base of the Gandhi statue, hours after its inauguration Wednesday.
India is not a member of the G7 but has been invited to every summit since 2019, which was hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at Biarritz, France. India has participated in 10 G7 summits to date.
Modi will be participating in the G7 Outreach Summit Friday, along with other countries invited by member countries. The G7 member states are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the European Union.
This is not the first time a statue of Gandhi has been vandalised in Italy. In June 2022, according to reports, a statue in the Italian city of Milan was defaced with pro-Khalistan slogans scrawled on it.
Similar to the incidents in Italy, statues of Gandhi have been vandalised in recent years in other G7 countries such as the US and Canada.
In December 2020, a lifesize bronze statue was disfigured in front of the Indian embassy in Washington D.C. by pro-Khalistani supporters. In 2021, another was ripped from its base, with half its face missing at a state park in California.
Last year in Canada, a sculpture was vandalised at the Simon Fraser University campus by Khalistan supporters. A few days before the campus incident, a statue near the Hamilton City Hall in Canada was defaced and spray-painted with slogans.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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