Van­dals struck at a Kali Tem­ple in Car­li Bay on Fri­day throw­ing a liq­uid, be­lieved to be acid, on the floor and on the mur­tis in­clud­ing that of the Di­vine God­dess Kali Ma.

This re­cent at­tack is the sec­ond in just over a year.

The first was around this same time dur­ing the aus­pi­cious oc­ca­sion of Navara­tri.

Ac­cord­ing to Wikipedia, Navara­tri is an an­nu­al Hin­du fes­ti­val ob­served in ho­n­our of the god­dess Dur­ga, an as­pect of Adi Parashak­ti, the supreme god­dess. It spans over nine nights (and ten days), first in the month of Chaitra (March/April), and again in the month of Ashvin (Sep­tem­ber/Oc­to­ber). It is ob­served for dif­fer­ent rea­sons and cel­e­brat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly in var­i­ous parts of the Hin­du In­di­an cul­tur­al sphere.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Pan­di­ta Sri­mati Don­na Ji of the Jai Kali Maa Mandir, Car­li Bay, said the sac­ri­lege will not de­ter them from cel­e­brat­ing the Di­vine God­dess­es.

Pan­di­ta Sri­mati gath­ered with scores of devo­tees and wor­shipped sev­er­al mur­tis of Hin­du god­dess­es, in­clud­ing a new mur­ti of Kali Ma, made of clay that will be tak­en to the tem­ple at Car­li Bay in a pro­ces­sion from a devo­tee’s res­i­dence in Brick­field.

The Pan­di­ta used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to send a strong mes­sage to the van­dals and those who may be tempt­ed to car­ry out a sim­i­lar at­tack on any place of wor­ship to “think twice”.

“Just as we have our earth­ly moth­er, our earth­ly moth­er came from this Di­vine God­dess and our Maa Kali. So to ac­tu­al­ly have that mind­set to go and in­ter­fere with the Di­vine God­dess Maa Kali and any oth­er Di­vine mur­ti it comes like you’re in­ter­fer­ing with your own moth­er or any fe­male in so­ci­ety,” she said.

“So my mes­sage is to please think twice be­fore you make a de­ci­sion. Make sure that it is a right one. Make sure that you are think­ing pos­i­tive­ly. Make sure that you know what you are do­ing that when you com­mit that act you would feel that sense of pride and not a sense of guilt and you would not al­low oth­er peo­ple to have a sense of re­morse or pain or suf­fer­ing be­cause of what you’re do­ing,” she added.

Pan­di­ta Sri­mati ex­plained that the van­dal­ism will not break their spir­it or stop them from cel­e­brat­ing Navara­tri.

“Navara­tri mean­ing nine and nine nights. It is the aus­pi­cious oc­ca­sion for the Di­vine God­dess Ma Lak­sh­mi, Ma Dur­ga and Ma Kali Ma in var­i­ous ways. One of these ways is where we in­stall a clay mur­ti where we’ll pay homage, pray to al­low us to be kind and com­pas­sion­ate, to al­ways al­low us to think straight and love each and every sin­gle liv­ing be­ing as she is the moth­er of the en­tire Uni­verse,” Pan­di­ta Sri­mati added.

The re­li­gious leader said the in­ci­dent was re­port­ed to the po­lice and while there seems to be in­creased po­lice pa­trols in the area she said there needs to be a broad­er se­cu­ri­ty net in the en­tire Car­li Bay area.