PUNE: The four men arrested for vandalizing the bust of noted Marathi playwright Ram Ganesh
Gadkari
have told the police that they have not read his play, Rajsanyas, and had acted only on the basis of a speech delivered by a political leader about a year ago.
The suspects — Pradeep Kanse (25),
Harshavardhan Magdum
(23), Swapnil Kale (24) and
Ganesh Karale
(26) — were produced before a city court on Wednesday morning, which remanded them in police custody for two days.
Senior inspector Ajay Kadam of the Deccan Gymkhana police station told TOI that the suspects, during interrogation, said they took it upon themselves to knock down the bust at Sambhaji Garden after listening to the political leader’s speech delivered during a public meeting at Tulapur, off the Pune-Ahmednagar highway, in January last year.
“The suspects told the police that they objected to Gadkari’s bust having been placed in a garden named after Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj,” Kadam said. “However, when we asked them if they had read any literature by Gadkari, they replied in the negative.”
Police are conducting an inquiry to find out if any senior leader was behind the vandalization. “However, the suspects maintained that they acted on their own. We are also yet to recover the hammer and axe used to damage and remove the bust,” Kadam said.
Maintain security near statues, cops tell PMC
After ascertaining the security lapse at Sambhaji Garden, the city police have written to the
Pune Municipal Corporation
(PMC) to maintain security near the statues of important personalities on city roads and in other public places, including gardens.
A senior police officer said the letter sent on Wednesday afternoon urged the civic body to deploy security guards at all such statues. However, a senior PMC officer told TOI that the civic body was yet to receive the letter. He admitted that there was a security lapse at the garden but claimed that it would be difficult for the civic body to provide guards at every statue in the city.
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