Daily London
Police believe the 400kg solid bronze statue of the global peace figure was taken from the Australian Indian Community Centre in Rowville just before 1am on Monday, January 12.
The thieves used an angle grinder to cut the statue at the ankles, according to CCTV.
Australian Indian Community Charitable Trust chairperson Vasan Srinivasan said the brazen theft had left the community angry and upset.
“Gandhi means a lot to us – a father of the nation who fought for India’s freedom without bloodshed,” he said.
“We adored this Gandhi statue, there are so many school children, families come here and take pictures with it.”
He doesn’t suspect the theft of the statue, which has an estimated value of $60,000, had racist or political motivations.
“There was no defacing, there was no spraying of any graffiti, it’s cut and taken it very cleanly,”
“We’re treating this as a theft of the statue, they took it for metallic value.”
Scrap metal dealers are warned to look out for the statue as the thieves may be looking to on-sell it.
The statue was gifted to the centre in 2021 by the Indian government.
It was vandalised just days after then-prime minister Scott Morrison inaugurated it, when thieves failed in their attempts to remove the head of the statue.
The Indian government’s Ministry of External Affairs today denounced the robbery.
“We strongly condemn the vandalisation and removal of the Mahatma Gandhi statue located at the Australian Indian Community Centre in Rowville, Melbourne by unidentified people,” ministry spokesperson Shri Randhir Jaiswal said.
“We have strongly raised the matter with Australian authorities and urged them to take immediate action to recover the missing statue and hold the culprits accountable.”
The investigation remains ongoing.
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