Chandigarh, October 10: A statue of a Sikh soldier unveiled less than a week ago has been vandalised in the town of Smethwick in the West Midlands region of England.
Photos tweeted by Amardeep Bassey, a journalist Huffington Post UK, shows a thick black line of black spray paint covered the words ‘Great War’ of ‘Lions of the Great War’ and added next to it were the words ‘Sepoys no more’ and ‘1 Jarnail’.
A 10ft statue of a #Sikh soldier unveiled last week outside Smethwick Sikh gurdwara to commemorate the First World War was vandalised last night and had graffiti written over it – it’s been taken off now but this is what was written. Sepoy is how the British referred to soldiers pic.twitter.com/YdYI8WPlwz
— Amardeep Bassey (@ambassey) 9 November 2018
News portal Birmingham Live said the graffiti has since been removed.
Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick had commissioned the monument, which depicts a turbaned Sikh soldier, to honour the sacrifices made by millions of South Asian service personnel of all faiths who fought for Britain in the world wars and other conflicts as part of the British Indian Army.
