The police in Bihar’s East Champaran district said Tuesday that they have arrested a man in connection with the incident in which a life-size statue of Mahatma Gandhi installed at a park in Motihari town was vandalised.

Superintendent of police (SP) Dr Kumar Ashish said the man, identified as Raj Kumar Mishra alias Raja, claimed he was intoxicated when he committed the act. “In the initial interrogation, he has said he was in a state of intoxication,” the SP said.

The statue was found uprooted and thrown a few metres away inside Charkha park under town police station area of Motihari, headquarters of East Champaran district, about 185 km north of Bihar’s capital Patna.

Video footages emerging from Motihari showed the statue, installed to mark the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s Champaran satyagraha at Charkha park, was badly damaged.

Meanwhile, Power Grid Corporation, which had installed the statue as part of CSR activity, has agreed to reinstall a new statue, according to district magistrate Shirsat Kapil Ashok. “The statue was not yet been formally handed over to the district administration,” Ashok said.