Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

In a bid to se­cure Hin­du tem­ples and wor­ship­pers in the lead-up to and dur­ing the Di­vali hol­i­day, there will be an in­creased po­lice pres­ence in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try.

The plan was ini­ti­at­ed af­ter sev­er­al Hin­du tem­ples and mur­tis were des­e­crat­ed over the past month.

The as­sur­ance came yes­ter­day from T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer In­sp Michelle Lewis, in re­sponse to questi­nos on the spate of in­ci­dents where places of wor­ship were targt­ed by crim­i­nals.

Dur­ing a de­bate on the 2024 Bud­get in the Sen­ate on Wednes­day, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor De­oroop Teemal con­demned the lat­est act of des­e­cra­tion at the Ram­leela Grounds in Tarou­ba, where an ef­fi­gy was burnt.

Teemal al­so raised con­cerns that such in­ci­dents, when re­port­ed to the po­lice, were not met with the nec­es­sary sense of ur­gency, as the be­lief was that a mis­chief-mak­er or va­grant was of­ten re­spon­si­ble.

He ar­gued, how­ev­er, that the pres­ence of al­co­hol and meat at some des­e­crat­ed sites was ev­i­dence that there was a more trou­bling mo­tive.

Re­spond­ing to these con­cerns dur­ing the week­ly TTPS me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, Lewis said all re­ports of des­e­cra­tion and sac­ri­lege were tak­en se­ri­ous­ly, re­gard­less of what re­li­gion was af­fect­ed. She said while some of­fice-hold­ers may not be sat­is­fied with the re­sponse thus far, the mat­ters were be­ing se­ri­ous­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

In ad­di­tion to these en­quiries, she not­ed that sev­er­al crime sup­pres­sion ex­er­cis­es will be rolled out to main­tain law and or­der for the height of the up­com­ing cel­e­bra­tion, which cul­mi­nate on No­vem­ber 12 with the Di­vali hol­i­day.

“Par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Cen­tral and South­ern Di­vi­sions, we have had the in­crease in pa­trols in those ar­eas to give that lev­el of com­fort and se­cu­ri­ty to those per­sons and gen­er­al­ly through­out the coun­try,” Lewis said.

“We are al­so go­ing in­to the Di­vali pe­ri­od and so you would al­so see an in­crease, par­tic­u­lar­ly with the Blue Line Op­er­a­tions through the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. We want to give the as­sur­ance to re­li­gious bod­ies, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of the Hin­du faith, that the po­lice take your re­ports and they take it very se­ri­ous­ly.”

Un­der sec­tion 26 of the Lar­ce­ny Act, sac­ri­lege is de­fined as the act of break­ing and en­ter­ing a place of di­vine wor­ship and com­mit­ting an of­fence. In­di­vid­u­als found guilty of sac­ri­lege are li­able to ten years’ im­pris­on­ment.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, an of­fi­cer in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion said there were plans to have a height­ened po­lice pres­ence in the days lead­ing up to the Di­vali hol­i­day.

He said these and oth­er strate­gies were dis­cussed at a meet­ing with se­nior of­fi­cers ear­li­er this week.

“These are some of the things that will be im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure the safe­ty of the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty and that all events go smooth­ly and with­out in­ci­dent.

“There are sev­er­al for­mal events that will be or­gan­ised by or­gan­i­sa­tions for Di­vali as well, so we will be pay­ing close at­ten­tion to these func­tions to pre­serve or­der.”

The of­fi­cer said that acts of sac­ri­lege were ar­restable of­fences, mean­ing that a war­rant was not re­quired to ar­rest some­one caught com­mit­ting such an act.

Acts of des­e­cra­tion at Hin­du sites

* In May 2022, the Cara­po Shiv Mandir in Ari­ma was bro­ken in­to and des­e­crat­ed with corned beef. Hin­dus con­sid­er cows to be sa­cred an­i­mals.

* In Sep­tem­ber 2022, the Lakrani Ganesh Mandir tem­ple in Pe­nal was bro­ken in­to and a small Ganesh mur­ti was de­stroyed and a speak­er box stolen.

* In Oc­to­ber 2022, the Kali Ma­ta tem­ple in Car­li Bay, Cou­va, was bro­ken in­to. Graf­fi­ti read­ing, ‘Read Ex­o­dus 20:3’ was smeared on the walls.

* In March, 2023, the Siparia Shi­va SDMS Mandir was des­e­crat­ed when the gate was forced open and sev­er­al re­li­gious flags were thrown over.

* In Sep­tem­ber 2023, van­dals broke in­to the Williamsville Hin­du Tem­ple and smashed con­crete blocks in the wor­ship area.

* In Oc­to­ber 2023, van­dals went on­to the Ram­leela Grounds at Tarou­ba and burnt an ef­fi­gy of the de­mon king Ra­van on the same day the com­mu­ni­ty was sched­uled to hold its fi­nal cel­e­bra­tion.