LAHORE: A man was arrested on Tuesday for vandalising the statue of Maharaja Ranjit Singh installed at the Lahore Fort.

This is the third time that the statue of the 19th century Sikh ruler had been vandalised since being unveiled on June 27, 2019 to mark his 180th death anniversary.

The Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA) officials said that around 8:30am on Tuesday, a man, identified as Rizwan, pulled down the statue using a hammer. Later, a first information report was registered against him.

Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry condemned the incident in a tweet, saying such “illiterates are really dangerous for Pakistan’s image internationally”.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Political Communication Dr Shahbaz Gill also tweeted that immediate action will be taken against the suspect. “Recently, the statue of Samiullah Sahib was also desecrated. These are symptoms of a sick mindset. This is an attempt to undermine Pakistan’s assessment.”

The designer of the statue, Faqir Syed Saifuddin of the Faqir Khana Museum, regretted the incident and urged that security be enhanced at the Lahore Fort. He recalled that this was the third time the statue had been vandalised. After its installment in 2019, two men had damaged one of its arms.

“We restored the arm overnight. Our team comprising our students and those of Naqash School of Arts restored it together.” The second time, a man had vandalised the bronze statue in December 2020 and was later arrested.

Mr Saifuddin said the statue should now be placed at a spot where the public did not have access to it.

The statue that took months to complete shows Ranjit Singh sitting on his favourite horse named Kahar Bahar with a sword in hand and clad in complete Sikh attire. The nine-foot statue made of fiber cold bronze was built and installed by the WCLA in collaboration with UK-based Sikh Heritage Foundation, which funded the project.

WCLA Director General Kamran Lashari called the incident unfortunate. On the repeated vandalism of the statue, he said the authority had taken strict measures already and would further tighten the security, adding that it would adopt additional measures to avoid such incidents in the future.

Lahore Conservation Society Information Secretary Dr Ajaz Anwar said: “The act shows the sick mentality of certain minds; such incidents tarnish the image of the country.”

Another member of the conservation society, Dr Fauzia Qureshi, said: “Ranjit Singh was the first son of the soil from Punjab who ruled this region -- all the others whom we venerate were foreigners from Central Asia, Mongols, Turks etc! When will this illiteracy end – we are indeed going through sad times which we cannot justify to our children and future generations.”

Regretting the incident, painter and art educationist Saleema Hashmi said the statue should now be placed on a higher podium.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2021