Racist attack on statue of Sikh

[palm_w1]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/4342973.stm

Racist attack on statue of Sikh

The statue of the Maharajah is in Thetford. Picture credit: Peter Bance

Racists are believed to have vandalised a statue of a Sikh monarch, covering it with paint and Nazi swastika symbols.

The statue of Maharajah Duleep Singh riding a horse, which stands in his adopted town of Thetford, Norfolk, was attacked early on Friday morning.

Duleep Singh (1838-1893), the last native ruler of the Punjab in India, lived in the nearby Elvedon Hall, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

The statue was erected by the Duleep Singh Centenary Trust in 1999.

Its director Harbinder Singh said he was "very saddened" by what he suspected was a racially motivated attack.

'Cowardly imbeciles'

He added: "But it in no way dents our affection and links with the local community of Thetford and East Anglia.

"This is the act of mindless and cowardly imbeciles. It is insulting the values of all of us."

Norfolk Police said they were treating the attack as of a "racial nature".

Thousands of Sikhs visit sites associated with him.

The Maharajah was the last native ruler of the Punjab.

[opensikh]

Typical even on his staute Duleep Singh suffers pain after years of his death. Typical Racists not a clue about him or anything that Queen Victoria done to his family.

I would suggest everyone buys this fantastic book

The Duleep Singhs: The Photographic Album of Queen Victoria's Maharajah

by Peter Bance

Synopsis

This book collects together 200 superb black and white photographs which tell the story of the Duleep Singhs, the family of the late Maharajah of the Punjab, who was deposed at the age of eleven by the East India Company, and exiled to Britain. The owner of the famous Koh-i-noor diamond, and a Christian convert, Singh became a country squire, indulging in royal hunts with the Prince of Wales and enjoying life as a houseguest of Queen Victoria at Osbourne House, as well as playing the field with a string of young beauties from Norfolk maids to Cockney stage artists. As well as telling the story of Duleep Singh's own life, the book also shows us the lives of his children: Frederick the archaeologist, antiquarian and benefactor to East Anglia; Victor, the gambler and serial bankrupt whose wife was forbidden by Queen Victoria to have any children; Sophia, the fanatical suffragette; Catherine, the secretive and notorious visitor to war-torn Germany whose relations with her governess were more than intimate; and Princess Bamba, the grumpy self-styled Queen of Lahore, who outlived everyone, living in her own imaginary royal court.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...6771376-2011052