Pakistan: The members of the extremist Pakistani organisation Tehreek-e-Labbaik vandalised Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s monument in Lahore on Tuesday. The perpetrator has been apprehended by the police. The video of the incident has been shared on the internet.
This is the third time the Maharaja’s monument has been vandalised at the high-security Lahore Fort complex.
The nine-foot cold bronze statue was unveiled at the Lahore Fort in June 2019 to commemorate Maharaja’s 180th death anniversary. Singh, the Sikh Empire’s first Maharaja, governed Punjab for nearly 40 years. He died in 1839.
The statue was vandalised by two members of Tehreek-e-Labbaik just two months after it was unveiled. Both men were apprehended by the cops. They infiltrated the fort as a handicapped person and his companion. The man who appeared to have a leg impairment struck the statue with the rod and the second one assisted him. The strike shattered an arm of the statue and some other parts too were damaged.
#Shameful this bunch of illiterates are really dangerous for Pakistan image in the world https://t.co/TXoAXCQtWW
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) August 17, 2021
According to the authorities, the assailants believed that erecting a statue of a Sikh king in a Muslim country was against their beliefs.
The statue depicting the Sikh monarch seated on his favourite horse, Kahar Bahar, with a sword in hand took eight months to construct. The horse was a gift from Dost Muhammad Khan, the Barazkai dynasty’s founder.
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The Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA) constructed and placed the statue in conjunction with the UK-based Sikh Heritage Foundation, which sponsored the project.
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