Police arrested and charged a Queens man on a hate crime charge Saturday in connection to the destruction of a Mahatma Gandhi statue in front of a Little Guyana Hindu temple.

Sukhpal Singh, 27, is the owner of a Mercedes-Benz seen in surveillance footage fleeing the scene of the vandalism on Aug. 16, the Queens district attorney’s office said in a release. Five people shoved the statue to the ground around 3 a.m., officials said, before hitting it with a sledgehammer and spray painting a word for dog in Punjabi that is sometimes used as an insult, according to a Punjabi dictionary published by the University of Chicago. The statue broke into multiple pieces, prosecutors said.

Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, the first Hindu-American legislator in Albany, described the graffiti as “obscene names” in an Aug. 18 release.

“We have realized Gandhi’s dream here in Richmond Hill, where Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Jews live together in harmony, often on the same block. We will not let any hate-fueled perpetrators stand in the way of that peace,” Rajkumar said in a statement Monday. “Today, I do not call for harsh punishment against the perpetrator apprehended, for Gandhi himself believed that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

A priest at the Tulsi Mandir Temple on 111th Street and Liberty Avenue discovered the destroyed statue the next morning, prosecutors said.

“As alleged, the defendant, along with several unapprehended others, committed a disgraceful act of violence against a Mahatma Gandhi statue that has become a universal symbol of peace, unity and inclusivity,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement.

The five suspects fled in the Mercedes-Benz police believe belongs to Singh and in a black Toyota Camry, according to the release. No other arrests have been made.

Prosecutors charged Singh with criminal mischief in the second degree as a hate crime charge, another criminal mischief in the second degree charge, and aggravated harassment in the first degree.

He is due back in court on Oct. 17. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted, officials said.

This was the second incident involving alleged damage to the statue. On Aug. 3, three people toppled the same statue, according to police.