Police remand of accused in Ambedkar statue vandalising case extended

A local court has extended the police remand of Akash Singh, arrested for vandalising the life-size statue of Dr BR Ambedkar located at Heritage Street here on January 26.

He was produced in court on Friday after the expiry of his police remand.

As per information received, the police also added more stringent sections of BNS in the FIR following the statements of several leaders of Dalit organisations who had met the investigating officer yesterday.

The police added section 152 (acts of endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India), 61 (2) (criminal conspiracy) of BNS apart from section 2 of Prevention of Insult to National Honour Act and section 4 of Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act against him.

Meanwhile, advocate Anil Kumar who appeared before the court on behalf of the community, claimed that the accused Akash Singh had a national flag which he had hidden in Bathinda. He wanted to set it on fire to disturb peace and harmony between different communities in the state.

Earlier, the police had registered a case under section 333 (house trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restrain), 324-F (mischief), 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of BNS and section 3, 4 and 5 of the SC/ST Act following the incident.

Meanwhile, the police have questioned around 10 persons, identified after scanning his mobile phone and other social media platforms where he was active.

“The investigations are still in progress and it would be too early to conclude about his motive behind the desecration of Dr BR Ambedkar’s statue,” said Assistant Commissioner of Police, Jaspal Singh.

The accused had returned from Dubai around three months back and did not visit his family. He had made frequent visits to Amritsar since then. He had gone to Dubai three years ago.

On January 26, when the country was celebrating its 76th Republic Day, Akash Singh climbed on to the statue of Dr BR Ambedkar at Heritage Street and started hammering away at it repeatedly before people asked him to come down. Before this, he had also set the stone-carved Constitution book on fire by throwing an inflammable material.