Ambedkar statue defaced again in Punjab

JALANDHAR: Two months after a Khalistan flag and graffiti reading ‘Sikhs are not Hindus’ were placed on Dr B R Ambedkar’s statue in the village of Nangal near Phillaur at the behest of Sikhs For Justice, the statue at the same place was defaced with black paint, stamped with ‘SFJ’, and a Khalistan flag was put around it. SFJ’s General Counsel, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, released the raw footage of the defaced statue on Monday morning, while also calling for the blackening of Ambedkar’s statues on June 6, alleging he “weaponized the Indian Constitution, which is the backbone of the infamous Operation Blue Star.”He also pointed out that targeting Ambedkar’s statues was timed to mark the 41st year of the army action at Darbar Sahib.Police cleaned the statue in the morning and started scanning through the CCTV footage around it.“On 6 June 2025, Sikhs For Justice will carry out a coordinated campaign to deface statues of Ambedkar across Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh with black paint.This blackening is a direct message to the global Sikh community that the Indian Constitution — authored by Ambedkar — is the legal document that enabled the 1984 military invasion and subsequent genocide of Sikhs,” Pannun said.“The Indian Constitution authored by Ambedkar legally reclassified Sikhs as Hindus under Article 25(b), which was the ideological foundation for the Indian Army’s attack on Sri Darbar Sahib. Ambedkar’s Constitution was the weapon used by Indira Gandhi’s regime to erase Sikh identity and justify state violence,” he added.He claimed that the statue defacement was aimed at exposing and confronting the Indian govt’s constitutional and military crimes against the “Sikh nation”.During the intervening night of March 30 and 31, a Khalistan flag and graffiti reading ‘Sikhs are not Hindus’ were placed on Ambedkar’s statue at the same place at SFJ’s behest. Later, Jalandhar Rural police arrested two accused - Sukhbir Singh and Avtar Singh from the village of Nurpur Chatha, near Nakodar - in the case. Police also added provisions of UAPA to the case while claiming that the accused received funds from abroad to vitiate the atmosphere in Punjab.Later, a new statue replaced the old one, and it was defaced this time.