Unidentified miscreants on Sunday evening vandalised a plaque put up to honour 26/11 martyr Sandeep Unnikrishnan in Bengaluru’s Yelahanka New Town area, triggering massive outrage and calls for the immediate restoration of the structure.
Pictures of the vandalised memorial, which is in the form of a granite slab, were put up on social media, drawing angry reactions from Bengalureans who called for the immediate arrest of the culprits.
Deputy CM G Parameshwara, who holds the Bengaluru Development portfolio and is the district in-charge minister of Bengaluru, also expressed shock over the incident. He has instructed Bengaluru Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad to restore the structure immediately.
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar also urged CM HD Kumaraswamy and G Parameshwara to restore the structure before 26 November.
An official at the Yelahanka New Town Police Station said:
Our officers went to the spot last night. We observed the damage done to the structure but no case has been taken up yet because we have not received a complaint. We are looking into it and the BBMP has been notified to ensure that the memorial is put right.
Major Unnikrishnan, awarded the Ashok Chakra (highest peacetime gallantry award in India) posthumously, was born on 15 March 1977, in Kozhikode and lived in Bengaluru after his family moved to the city. He studied at the Frank Anthony Public School in Ulsoor before joining National Defence Academy in Pune in 1995. He was inducted into the Special Action Group (SAG) of the elite National Security Guard (NSG) force specialised to handle anti-terror operations.
During the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Unnikrishnan was martyred on 27 September during an operation to rescue trapped hostages who were held by terrorists on the sixth floor of the Taj Mahal Hotel. Led by him, the commandos of the NSG went on to save 14 hostages.
The then Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa named the Mother Dairy Double Road stretch between Federal Mogul on Doddaballapur Road and MS Palya junction as Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan Road.
(This article was originally published on The News Minute.)
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