With a sledgehammer, the statue was entirely smashed by the perpetrators; hate crimes in the city increased by 15.7% from the previous year. In Queens, New York, miscreants smashed a statue of Mahatma Gandhi outside of a temple in a second such incident in the previous two weeks.
According to the reports, six individuals defaced the Gandhi statue with vulgar language at 1:30 am on Tuesday before smashing it to pieces.
Obscene comments were also sprayed on the sidewalk of 111th Street, which is close to the Queens temple where the event occurred.
The same monument had been outside the Shri Tulsi Mandir for 7 years when it was knocked over two weeks earlier, on August 3, sparking a national outcry over the rise in hate crimes.
The statue was completely destroyed after the second assault. Police said that the suspects, who are thought to be between the ages of 25 and 30, attacked the scene using a sledgehammer.
The founder of the Shri Tulsi Mandir in South Richmond Hill, Pandit Lakhram Maharaj, was reported in the Queens Courier as saying, “To know that Gandhi represents peace and someone would come and simply attack the statue and vandalise it, it’s extremely terrible.”
Jennifer Rajkumar, a member of the New York State Assembly, tweeted her condemnation of the incident and her commitment to finding peaceful ways to “fight anti-Hindu bigotry.” The culprits should “be immediately caught, charged, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” she further demanded.
Featured Image: geograph.org.uk
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