Following backlash on social media over ‘Shaktiman’ being given more importance than the cops who lost their lives, the Uttarakhand government has removed the statue of the police horse installed.

“The statue was here till Monday evening. On Tuesday morning when I came here, it wasn’t here. It was a horse statue. I don’t know where it vanished,” a local resident said.

Chief Minister Harish Rawat was supposed to inaugurate the ‘ShaktimanPark’ named after the police horse, who was critically maimed in a Bharatiya Janata Party rally carried out by Member of Parliament Ganesh Joshi earlier on March 14.

However, Rawat skipped the inaugural ceremony on Monday and left the venue soon after his visit.

Shaktiman was a well-trained 13-year-old horse of the Uttarakhand mounted police.

When the horse was deployed by the police during a BJP rally, Joshi had allegedly attacked the horse’s leg with a baton, critically injuring the animal.

The outrage over this incident of gross animal abuse grew so large that Joshi was even briefly arrested.

The white-coloured Kathiawari horse succumbed to its injuries on April 20.