Nashville (US), Dec 8 (AP) A Confederate statue along an interstate in Tennessee that has drawn ire for years was dismantled Tuesday.

The 25-foot-tall (7.6-meter-tall) statue of early Ku Klux Klan leader and former Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest had stood on private property alongside Interstate 65, south of downtown Nashville, for more than two decades. Its removal comes just over a year after the death of property owner Bill Dorris.

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The executor of the will is in the process of finalizing the distribution of assets and made the decision to remove the statue, news outlets reported.

The statue had been vandalised several times over the years, including being shot at multiple times, Dorris said in 2017 when it was doused with pink paint. At the time, he said he would leave the paint because it would draw more attention to the monument.

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State Sen. Heidi Campbell of Nashville, who had tried previously to get the statue taken down, said she was excited that it was being dismantled.

“This is great news. It's just so hurtful to people, not to mention it's heinously ugly,” she said. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)