A newly installed bust of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in West Bengal's Birbhum district was found defaced with ink, police said on Wednesday.
"The bust was installed on Monday at the panchayat office in Panchra. On Tuesday, it was discovered with ink smeared on it. We are investigating the matter," N. Sudheer Kumar, Superintendent of Police, Birbhum, told IANS.
The white bust is placed atop an Indian Tricolour-hued platform.
The incident comes days ahead of August 18, the date on which Netaji is said to have died in an air crash in Formosa (now Taiwan) in 1945.
However, countless Netaji admirers and a part of the revolutionary's family dispute the air crash theory.