Hyderabad: The Jawaharnagar police arrested two persons for shifting a statue of Dr B.R. Ambedkar from Punjagutta to a dumping yard in a garbage pick-up lorry. The statute was broken in the process.
The police also booked officials of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, who ordered the statue to be shifted to the dumping yard.
At about 1 pm on Saturday, the Jawaharnagar police received a complaint from one P. Ram Murthy, president of Telangana Mala Mahanadu, that a statue of Dr Ambedkar was destroyed at Punjagutta crossroads and shifted to the garbage dumping yard at Jawaharnagar in a lorry (AP11 X 7752) belonging to the GHMC.
When the garbage was unloaded, pieces of the statue were found in the garbage, he said. He further found that some GHMC officials had asked the driver of the lorry to dump the statue in the garbage yard.
Following the complaint, a case was registered under Sections 3 (1) (r) and (t) of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and IPC Section 427 (mischief causing damage), against the GHMC officials who ordered for removal of the statue and those who loaded it into the garbage lorry.
After the investigation, lorry driver Dappu Raju, 35, and vehicle operator at the dumping yard Bheem Guptha, 29, a resident of Rajendranagar and native of Nepal, were arrested and produced before a court by the Jawaharnagar police on Sunday.
Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that a case had been registered against the GHMC officials including supervisors at the Yousufguda dumping yard Balraj and Srikanth, who ordered removal of the statue and shifting it to the dumping yard.
Further investigation is on to establish the role of the pesrons involved in the offence, he said.
