Indian state celebrates local criminals by installing statues

The trend of installing statues of persons with deemed a criminal antecedent threatens to acquire dangerous proportions in Uttar Pradesh.

The installation of the statue of the Bulandshahr riot accused, Sumit Kumar, is a step in this direction.

In 2016, a statue of dreaded dacoit Dadua and his wife was installed in a Hanuman Temple in Narsinghpur Kabraha village, Fatehpur district.

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Dadua was shot dead in an encounter with the Special Task Force in 2007. His brother, Bal Kumar, is a former Samajwadi Party (SP) MP while his son, Veer Singh, is also an SP leader.

Both were actively involved in the installation of the statue even though the then Akhilesh Yadav government had said that it would not allow it.

Former state Minister Ram Murti Varma had even visited the temple a day before the statue was installed to offer prayers.

A community feast was held in the temple on the occasion that attracted over one lakh people from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Dadua, who unleashed a reign of terror in the Bundelkhand region for almost three decades, was known to have massacred nine persons in Ramu ka Purwa village in 1986 to avenge the murder of his father.

A top-ranking police official said that there was no law that prevented people from installing statues on private properties.

He wielded considerable influence over the Kurmi community and his word was command during elections in the region.

Bal Kumar reasoned that there was no need for any permission since the temple was on a private land and the Supreme Court in 2013, had banned the installation of "statue or construction of any structure at public places".

The same argument was now being used by Sumit Kumar's father Amarjeet Singh who has installed a statue of his son on his land.

Family members and friends of other gangsters and criminals were also now planning to install similar statues in temples and place them on a pedestal.

According to sources, statues of the dreaded don Shri Prakash Shukla and mafia-turned-politician Virendra Pratap Shahi were to be installed in temples in Gorakhpur while another of Nirbhay Gujjar would installed either in Etawah or Jalaun.

A retired DGP said that this was a very dangerous trend that needed to be nipped in the bud.

A top-ranking police official, meanwhile, said that there was no law that prevented people from installing statues on private properties.

Indo-Asian News Service