The head of the municipality, Srecko Blazicko, urged the authorities to punish the perpetrators as well as to remove the causes of the incident. He said that the villagers were outraged by the incident, and added that "fascism has again raised its head".
Krapina-Zagorje County Prefect, Vlasta Hubicki, and Assistant Culture Minister Goranka Horjan, who attended the session, condemned the destruction of the monument to the commander of Yugoslav partisans during World War II, leader of Yugoslavia between 1945 and his death in 1980, and one of founders of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Vladimir Plesko, leader of the local branch of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), who held a separate news conference, condemned the destruction of the monument branding it as "a crime against the Croatian Zagorje region and Croatian history, because Tito established his renown as a proven anti-Fascist fighter".
The spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Zlatko Mehun, and the head of Zagorje County police department, Zeljko Cujzek, told reporters that the monument was torn down in an explosion some 20 minutes after midnight on Sunday.
The windows on Tito's house and on a nearby cafe and a building housing the Ethno-Village Kumrovec were shattered in the blast.
The police are searching for the perpetrators. All nearby border crossings have been blocked in cooperation with the Slovene police.
The office of the Sabor Speaker Vladimir Seks reported on Monday afternoon that Seks most strongly condemned the incident labelling it as a barbaric act.
In light of the fact that Tito was the leader of the anti-Fascist movement in Croatia and Yugoslavia, Seks recalls that the preamble of the Croatian Constitution states that the foundations of Croatia's sovereignty lie in the 1943 decisions of the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Croatia (known as ZAVNOH) and in the 1947 constitution adopted by the then People's Republic of Croatia (under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito).