scorecardresearch
Friday, March 29, 2024
Support Our Journalism
HomeWorldMahatma Gandhi statue in Queens, New York vandalised for 2nd time in...

Mahatma Gandhi statue in Queens, New York vandalised for 2nd time in two weeks

Perpetrators completely destroyed the statue with a sledgehammer; hate crime in the city has gone up 15.7% as compared to last year.

Follow Us :
Text Size:

Delhi: A statue of Mahatma Gandhi outside a temple in Queens, New York was destroyed by miscreants in a second such attack in two weeks.

The New York Post reported that six men smashed the Gandhi statue to pieces around 1:30 am on Tuesday and painted it with obscenities.

The 111th Street’s road near the temple in Queens where the incident took place was also sprayed with obscene words.

Two weeks earlier, on August 3, the same statue, standing outside the Shri Tulsi Mandir for 7 years, had been knocked over, prompting community-wide outrage over increasing hate crimes across the country.

The second attack saw the statue completely demolished. Suspects, described to be 25 to 30 years old, went at it with a sledgehammer, according to the police.

“To know that Gandhi represents peace and somebody would come and just target the statue and vandalize it, it’s very sad,” Pandit Lakhram Maharaj, the founder of the Shri Tulsi Mandir in South Richmond Hill, was quoted in the Queens Courier. 

New York State Assembly member Jennifer Rajkumar tweeted condemning the incident and of working towards peaceful ways to “combat anti-Hindu hate”. She also called for “the perpetrators to be apprehended swiftly, charged and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”.

According to a CBS News report, hate crime in the city has gone up to 15.7% as compared to last year.

A Rutgers University report also finds evidence of sharply increasing hate speech directed towards the Hindu community on social media by mostly white supremacists.

On 14 July this year, in a similar incident, a Mahatma Gandhi statue was vandalised in Canada which saw widespread condemnation. In February this year, another life-sized Gandhi statue was destroyed in Manhattan, NYC.


Also read: ‘Interpersonal conflict,’ say cops after 4 Muslim men killed in New Mexico; suspect arrested


 

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here.

Support Our Journalism

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular