Labourers work on the 35-foot-tall bronze statue of general Lachit Borphukan, under whose command the Ahoms defeated the Muhgals in the famous Battle of Saraighat in 1671, at its erection site.

The statue, along with statues of two canons and eight 18-foot-tall soldiers, will be installed on the bank of the Brahmaputra near Machkhowa in Guwahati to keep the memory of the great battle alive.

It took more than two years for sculptor Biren Sinha to complete the statue.

Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi laid the foundation of the statue in February 2011, and it was initially expected to be completed by 2012. But delay in release of funds delayed the project. Text by a staff reporter, picture by UB Photos