A radical gay rights group in New Zealand is conducting a campaign of vandalism against targets that they accuse of “pinkwashing”.

Last week a ‘GAYTM’, an ordinary ATM given a glittery, sequined makeover ahead of the Auckland Pride Festival by ANZ bank, was covered in pink paint in what police assumed was a homophobic attack.

However, a gay group calling itself ‘Queers Against Injustice’ claimed credit for the attack in an anonymous post online.

“It is disheartening that the representation of our symbolic pinkwashing of the GAYTM has been manipulated into an act of hatred and complicity,” said the post, reports Stuff.co.nz.

“This misrepresentation reinforces the image of tolerance that ANZ has spent a lot of money marketing to us.”

“Pinkwashing… describes the way that institutions co-opt LGBT struggles to distract from and disguise unethical behaviour,” said the anonymous post on the website hashtag500words.com.

The group claims that the attack on the ATM – which was commissioned in New Zealand as part of the bank’s diversity programme –“sought to draw attention to the lack of representation of bodies that counter the racist, classist and cis-biased nature of Pride.”

So far the group have vandalised two police stations and three ANZ bank branches, reports TVNZ. A police investigation is ongoing.

On Monday, ANZ tweeted a picture of one of the vandalised branches, saying the incident has left them “gutted”.