Authorities suspect that a 400-kilogram bronze statue representing a renowned peace advocate was stolen from the Australian Indian Community Centre in Rowville just before 1 a.m. on Monday, January 12.

Surveillance footage reveals that the culprits used an angle grinder to sever the statue at its ankles.

Vasan Srinivasan, chairperson of the Australian Indian Community Charitable Trust, expressed that the audacious theft has left the community both angered and distressed.

“Gandhi is immensely significant to us—a national father figure who championed India’s independence through nonviolence,” Srinivasan remarked.

“The community cherished this statue of Gandhi, with numerous schoolchildren and families flocking to take photos with it,” he added.

Despite the statue’s estimated worth of $60,000, Srinivasan does not believe the act was driven by racial or political motives.

“There was no defacing, there was no spraying of any graffiti, it’s cut and taken it very cleanly,”

“We’re treating this as a theft of the statue, they took it for metallic value.”

Scrap metal dealers are warned to look out for the statue as the thieves may be looking to on-sell it.

The statue was gifted to the centre in 2021 by the Indian government.

It was vandalised just days after then-prime minister Scott Morrison inaugurated it, when thieves failed in their attempts to remove the head of the statue.

The Indian government’s Ministry of External Affairs today denounced the robbery.

“We strongly condemn the vandalisation and removal of the Mahatma Gandhi statue located at the Australian Indian Community Centre in Rowville, Melbourne by unidentified people,” ministry spokesperson Shri Randhir Jaiswal said.

“We have strongly raised the matter with Australian authorities and urged them to take immediate action to recover the missing statue and hold the culprits accountable.”

The investigation remains ongoing. 

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