New Delhi: Signboards of Akbar Road and Humayun Road in Lutyens’ Delhi were blackened and covered with posters of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj on Friday night by a group of miscreants. The incident came to light after videos of the act surfaced on social media, showing individuals defacing the signboards with black spray paint and raising slogans in support of Shivaji and his son, Chhatrapati Sambhaji.
According to police sources, the vandalism occurred after a group of young men watched Chhava, a recently released Bollywood film starring Vicky Kaushal, based on the life of Maratha warrior king Chhatrapati Sambhaji. The videos show some individuals were also seen kicking the signboards, urinating on them, and pasting posters reading Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Marg over the defaced boards.
Authorities remove posters
One of the men can be heard demanding that the names of these roads be changed, warning that they would be uprooted if not renamed. After pasting the posters, the miscreants poured milk over them as a symbolic gesture.
Meanwhile, the authorities acted swiftly, and officials from the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) removed the posters and cleaned the signboards by Saturday morning. The Delhi Police have launched an investigation and are reviewing CCTV footage to identify and apprehend those involved.
This is not the first time such an incident has taken place. In 2021, the same Akbar Road signboard was vandalized, with posters of Samrat Hemu Vikramaditya pasted over it. The demand to rename roads named after Mughal rulers has been raised by various groups in the past.
