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Workers repainting a Zubeen Garg mural during a civic beautification drive at Guwahati's Ganeshguri flyover ended up with something the pub...

10 July 2026 - Ganeshguri flyover, Guwahati, Assam

Record date
10 Jul 2026
Location
Ganeshguri flyover, Guwahati, Assam

What happened

Workers repainting a Zubeen Garg mural during a civic beautification drive at Guwahati's Ganeshguri flyover ended up with something the public — and then Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma — read as looking more like Che Guevara than the Assamese singer. Rather than let that pass, Sarma went further, publicly questioning why Guwahati's walls feature Che Guevara at all since 'he has no connection with Assam,' and suggested that if artists want a homegrown revolutionary, they should paint Paresh Baruah instead — the ULFA(I) commander-in-chief currently wanted for leading an armed insurgency against the Indian state. Sarma later walked it back, insisting he doesn't endorse 'anything Paresh Barua does' and never actually asked anyone to paint his portrait. The mural mix-up is still just a mural mix-up; the government's proposed replacement artist is a fugitive secessionist.

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