Toronto: In the latest in a series of such incidents, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Canada has been defaced and spray painted with pro-Khalistan and anti-India graffiti.
The vandalism took place close to the City Hall in the Ontario town of Hamilton. Since 2012, there has been a statue of the Mahatma there.
A video of the vandalism shows the six-foot-tall bronze monument, which the Indian government had donated, being soaked in paint and having graffiti inscribed around its base, including insults to Gandhi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The statue's walking stick has a flag of Khalistan flying on it as well.
The vandalism was discovered in early morning and city authorities worked quickly to clean the statue and the graffiti. Hamilton Police confirmed to the media that they received a complaint in this regard and were investigating.
It was the fourth such occurrence of that sort in a span of eight months when a Hindu temple in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) was vandalised with anti-India and pro-Khalistan graffiti spray painted on its back wall in February. The Shri Ram Temple in Mississauga, in the Greater Toronto Area, was the focus of the vandalism.
On January 30, the Gauri Shankar Mandir in Brampton was similarly desecrated. Prior to that, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, located at the Vishnu Mandir in Richmond Hill, was defaced in July last year. The 20-foot tall bronze statue was situated in the temple’s Peace Park. Weeks later, in September, an episode of such vandalisation occurred at the front entrance to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Toronto.