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Mao portrait replaced

— PHOTO: AFP

A new portrait of Chairman Mao on display at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Sunday.

BEIJING: Workers replaced the portrait of late Chinese leader Chairman Mao Zedong that hangs above the gate to the Forbidden City with a brand new replica in the wee hours on Sunday. The former portrait was damaged by a 35-year-old unemployed person from Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on Saturday. The Forbidden City, which was temporarily closed, was open on Sunday. Gu hurled a burning object at the portrait, causing a slight burn mark in the lower left part of the portrait, said the Beijing Public Security Bureau. Gu, who was once treated for mental disease last year, is still under interrogation by the police. The damaged portrait, six metres high, five metres wide and weighing about two tonnes, is a reproduction of the fourth edition of Mao's portrait that has hung at the spot since New China was founded in 1949.

— Xinhua

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