A small statue of an elephant installed at the Ambedkar Park in Lucknow is reported to have been stolen. The park, which was built during the Bahujan Samaj Party rule, has innumerable elephant statues in various sizes. A case has been registered at the Gautam Palli police station on the basis of a complaint lodged by security officer Niaz Ahmad, news agency IANS reported.
Quoting SS Bhadauria, the Inspector-in-Charge of Gautam Palli, the report said the weight of the statue was less than 5 kg. This is not the first time an elephant statue has been stolen from the park. A similar incident was reported around two years ago after which all the statues had been counted.
According to the IANS report, the police are scanning the CCTV footage of the area. The general public does not have access to the spot from where the statue was stolen.
The Ambedkar Memorial Park, formally known as Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Prateek Sthal, is a public park and memorial located in Lucknow's Gomti Nagar.
The park was constructed by former UP CM and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati in 2008 and has a huge bronze structure of Ambedkar whose height is 125 feet.
The entire site has been constructed from red sandstone brought from Rajasthan. The park covers a total area of 107 acres and has innumerable monumental elephants.
The park has been built to honour all stalwarts who dedicated their lives for bettering the lives of the poor. Statues of Dr Ambedkar, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule and Kanshi Ram have been built in the park to remember the contribution of these great leaders towards the welfare of Dalit of this country.
The park also has a statue of BSP supremo along with the leaders mentioned above.
Several Opposition parties even criticised then CM Mayawati for spending public money on statues of herself and BSP's party symbol, the elephant. A petition filed in Supreme Court, in 2019, alleged that Mayawati had allocated money from the state budget of 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore for the project.