Hate crimes against Hindus in Trinidad
An empty tin of Rainbow corn beef and the crust of a Kiss whole wheat slice-loaf bread greeted devotees as they opened the gates of Carapo Shiv Mandir in Trinidad on Mother’s Day weekend as they prepared for celebrations. As the temples’ people came to clean for Sunday’s celebration, their parsad pots were stained by the processed bovine remains of vandals. Hindus do not eat beef because they consider the cow to be sacred.
Annually, Hindu iconography is desecrated, at least once, by malicious, sacrilegious and ignorant persons in the multi-religious society. Though these are one-off cases, since T&T is the land where every creed and race is supposed to find an equal place, vandalism toward religious iconography is still apparent.
Hindu devotees in Carapo near Arima experienced a shock and horror they never expected. Not only did the vandals cook corn beef, but they ate it too. The sadism couldn’t be more jarring. This is a particularly disturbing trend since recently, a zealous Rastafarian invaded a RC Church in Belmont, destroying a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The vandal from Belmont was later arrested. However, the probe into the desecration of Carapo’s Shiv Mandir is still ongoing.
At the Shiv Mandir, bandits made off with three ring stoves, costume jewellery which adorned the murtis, five gas tanks, a kettle, a radio and a microwave. By God’s grace, they didn’t smash the murtis [sacred statues].
The temple’s guardian estimated loss of valuables around $5000 to 10,000. TTD. This is not the first occurrence of invasion at the Carapo Shiv Mandir, but certainly, it is more costly than what occurred in 2018, according to Stephen Sookram. Swindlers, degenerates and vandals do not fear the Trinidad and Tobago police force, but it seems as though the fear of God also goes beyond them. This is awfully frightening.
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