Idol of BR Ambedkar in Noida park broken, protests follow

A statue of Dr BR Ambedkar in a park in Sector 37 was vandalised by unidentified people on Wednesday afternoon, the police said. The incident is believed to have taken place during a spell of rain in the afternoon.

Agitated residents flocked to the sector after the incident and filed a case. Police at the Sector 39 police station registered an FIR against unidentified persons.

“A number of police officers and senior administrative officials reached the spot and pacified the agitated crowd. It was found that a human size statue of Dr Ambedkar was installed at the park,” BR Zaidi, station house officer of Sector 39 police station, said.

“The caretaker of the park saw that the hand of the statue was broken. Residents of the area informed the police about the incident,” Zaidi said.

The FIR was filed on a written complaint of Ratan Singh, president of Dr BR Ambedkar Jan Kalyan Samiti, which maintains the statue.

The police, however, said that there was no witness to the incident as everyone ran out of the park to take shelter from the rain and some miscreants had broken the right arm of the statue when nobody was around.

“There is no CCTV camera installed inside the park for surveillance purpose. However, we are trying to get details of the persons who were present in and around the park during the time of the incident, between 12 noon and 2 pm,” Zaidi said.

The incident took a political turn when city Bahujan Samaj Party chief Lal Singh Gautam also reached the spot around 2.30 pm.

“Some anti-social elements did this to trigger tension. We have requested the police to arrest the culprits soon,” Gautam said.

Gautam said he will seek help to install CCTV cameras in the park and do barbwire fencing around the statue of Dr Ambedkar.

“As of now, the statue has been covered. We will see if it can be restored, else we will install a new one,” he said.