Mumbai, May 15

Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt on Wednesday condemned the destruction of Bengali polymath Vidyasagar's bust during BJP President Amit Shah's roadshow in Kolkata.

Bhatt tweeted: "To attack Pandit Vidyasagar is to attack Bangla language. To begin with, he simplified Bangla for studying through Borno Porichoy."

Clashes broke out between members of the Trinamool Congress students' union and BJP supporters who participated in Shah's massive roadshow in north Kolkata on Tuesday evening, following which a group of saffron party activists allegedly resorted to vandalism inside the Vidyasagar College campus and destroyed a bust of Vidyasagar.

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance. He was a philosopher, academic educator, writer, translator, printer, publisher, entrepreneur, reformer and philanthropist.

Mahesh Bhatt slams destruction of Vidyasagar's statue