Snigdhendu Bhattacharya
Shashi Lodge is a historic building in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh district. Built in the 19th century during the British colonial occupation, it was once the palatial residence of zamindars (feudal landowners) and now houses the Mymensingh Museum and the Teachers’ Training College for women.
In a garden on its campus, a white marble statue of the Roman goddess Venus imported some 150 years ago, stood in the middle of a fountain. It had survived many regimes — British, Pakistani, Bangladeshi — and rulers whether democratic, military, authoritarian, religious or secular.
On August 6, a day after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and left the country in a dramatic chain of developments, a mob forced their way into the premises of the Shashi Lodge and vandalized and beheaded the Venus sculpture. Legendary artist Zainul Abedin’s statue was defaced. There was no other damage to the property, except for these statues.
Overall, about 1,500 sculptures, relief sculptures, murals and memorials have been vandalized, set on fire and uprooted all over the country in just three days — August 5-7.
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