Angry fans of Kannada actor Vishnuvardhan staged a protest on Saturday after a bust of the late actor at the Balagangadharanatha Swamiji circle on Magadi highway in Bengaluru was vandalised. The incident took place on Friday night. Umesh Shetty, one of the actor's fans, informed the media that he had found the bust vandalised on Saturday morning.
"There was a pressure on us to relocate the statue to a close-by place and we had agreed to it. However, vandalising the bust like that is extraordinarily unwarranted and the police commissioner must take cognisance of such act and send the culprits behind the bars," he said.
A resident of a locality nearby said that for many days a section of people have been objecting to the actor's statue being installed there. Devotees of Adichunchanagiri Mutt, which is also located nearby, wanted a statue of the late seer installed at the circle.
Kannada actor Darshan demanded that the police should take action against such miscreants who are upto disrupt peace in the society.
"He lives in our hearts. He was a legend. None has the right to insult our legends this manner. I oppose and demand the police to take action against miscreants," he tweeted.
Karnataka Housing Minister V Somanna, who is also the local MLA, condemned the incident and said that since the actor's followers were prepared to relocate the statue and vandalising it in the night was uncalled for.
"We are going to speak to all sides and peacefully resolve the difficulty and reinstall Vishnuvardhan's statue at one other location quickly," he said.
It may be recalled that recently, a Telugu film actor Vijay Rangaraju had spoken ill about the deceased actor in one of his interviews, to which the entire Kannada film industry had taken serious note of and demanded an unconditional apology from him.
Realising that his interview had snowballed into a controversy, Rangaraju had later tendered his apology to Vishnuvardhan's fans.