By Prior Beharry
POLICE are being dismissive of the desecration of Hindu temples in Trinidad and Tobago.
This was the claim of Independent Senator Deoroop Teemal speaking during the 2023/2024 Budget debate in the Upper House on Tuesday.
He said there have been a string of incidents over the past three years regarding the desecration of temples.
Speaking to the people at the temples after they were desecrated, Teemal said, they felt that the police were being dismissive of their reports.
Teemal said while the police do take the reports, they say that it was a vagrant or mentally disturbed person who was doing the vandalism.
He said, “That is the general message that is coming across.”
Teemal said, “But what we need to note is that to take alcohol and to take meat into a temple deliberately, to desecrate a temple, it calls for really a high level of organisation and thinking for vagrants and mentally disturbed people.”
He said, “We should not continue to be dismissive of it because history will show us, not only in Trinidad and Tobago but all over he world, that these things may start as trickles but they can really mount into serious problems.”
On Monday, while prayers were taking place at the Pranavananda Ashram at Temple Drive, Beaucarro, vandals threw stones and debris onto the compound.
Walls, pipelines, roofs, devotees’ cars were damaged, according to MP for Couva South Rudranath Indarsingh who condemned the incident.
On Saturday night, the Tarouba Recreation Grounds, a popular Ramleela site, was attacked, tents were stolen and props created for use in the Ramleela production were destroyed.
On September 10, the Williamsville Hindu Temple was attacked; on September 22, at the Lakrani Ganesh Mandir on Gopie Trace, Penal, murtis were demolished and on September 28 the Kali Mata Temple in Carli Bay, Couva was graffitied, Indarsingh noted.
The Couva South MP said, “Lamentably, all religions seem to be under attack; the Tableland ASJA Jamaat was vandalised in September 2022, the St Francis Roman Catholic Church in Belmont and the Claxton Bay Seventh Day Adventist Church were also subject to vandalism in 2022.”
