India on Thursday condemned an incident of vandalism targeting a Hindu temple in Canada and said it has taken up the issue with the authorities there. The spate of vandalism against Hindu temples continues in Canada with the latest incident taking place in Windsor province of Ontario. The police termed it as “hate-motivated” and said it was looking for two suspects.
It is suspected that alleged Khalistan supporters carried out the attack late on Tuesday night. The country has seen five such acts since July last year and no arrests have, so far, taken place.
“We condemn this, it is a very unfortunate incident. We have taken this up with the Canadian authorities,” Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arnidam Bagchi said here on Thursday. He also said Canada was urged to bring the perpetrators of the incident to book as soon as possible.
The target this time was the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir as perpetrators spray painted it with anti-India graffiti. Slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi were also splashed on the walls of the temple compound.
The local police in a statement said late on Wednesday that it has launched an investigation into the incident and was looking for two suspects.
The High Commission of India in Ottawa, Canada has strongly condemned the act of vandalism. “We have taken up with the Canadian authorities the hateful act of putting anti-India graffiti on the walls of the BAPS Swaminarayan temple in Windsor. We strongly condemn this act of vandalism,” the Mission said in a tweet.
The Windsor Police Service said officers were dispatched to the temple in the 1700 block of the Northway Avenue following a report of hate-motivated vandalism on Wednesday.
“Officers discovered anti-Hindu and anti-India graffiti sprayed in black on an exterior wall of the building,” the police said in a statement.
Through investigation, officers obtained a video that shows two suspects in the area just after 12 A.M. In the video, one suspect appears to commit the vandalism on the wall of the building while the other keeps watch, it said.
At the time of the incident, one suspect wore a black sweater, black pants with a small white logo on the left leg, and black and white high-top running shoes.
The second suspect wore black pants, a sweatshirt, black shoes, and white socks. Police asked residents in the immediate vicinity of the temple to check their home surveillance or dashcam video footage for evidence of the suspects.
A spokesperson for the BAPS organisation reportedly said they were “very shocked by the anti-Indian graffiti on our mandir walls.” In an email to members of the Hindu Federation in Canada, a representative of the BAPS organisation said the “incident was reported to the local police for their immediate necessary action.”
Images attached to the email showed slogans against India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
This is the fifth such incident where a temple has been defaced with such graffiti since July last year. On February 14, the target was the Shri Ram Mandir in the town of Mississauga in the GTA.
Slogans spray-painted included those attacking India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and describing the founder of the separatist Khalistan movement, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, as a “martyr.”
On January 30, the Gauri Shankar Mandir in Brampton was similarly desecrated. Before that, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, located at the Vishnu Mandir in Richmond Hill, was defaced in July last year. The 20-foot tall bronze statue was situated in the temple’s Peace Park.
Weeks later, in September, an episode of such vandalisation occurred at the front entrance to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Toronto.
Statues of Mahatma Gandhi have been targeted for vandalism with a similar modus operandi. The latest such incident involved the decapitation of a Gandhi sculpture located on the campus of the Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. That incident occurred on March 27.
On March 23, a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, located at the City Hall in the town of Hamilton in Ontario was defaced and anti-India and pro-Khalistan graffiti spray-painted near its base. That incident is being investigated by Hamilton Police’s Hate Crime Unit.
The Khalistan supporters also blocked the venue last month in British Columbia where Indian envoy to Canada Sanjay Kumar Verma was to be felicitated. Some protestors also reportedly brandished swords.
The protest was in apparent fallout of the ongoing operation to nab radical preacher Amritpal Singh in India. The Indian High Commissioner had to cancel his visit due to security concerns as alleged Khalistani supporters blocked the entrance to the venue there.
Reports said the local police was not able to control the mob which started gathering a couple of hours before the event was scheduled to begin. The police reportedly advised the High Commissioner against attending the function.
