The To­ba­go Hin­du So­ci­ety (THS) wants Sat Ma­haraj, Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS), to apol­o­gize to To­bag­o­ni­ans for his re­cent state­ments about their work ethics.

THS Pres­i­dent Pul­wat­tie Beepath said the or­gan­i­sa­tion had once been af­fil­i­at­ed with the SDMS but they split dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2006-2010 be­cause of a land dis­pute. The THS did not want the SDMS to be grant­ed land by the THA and want­ed the lands to in­stead be giv­en to a To­ba­go-based or­gan­i­sa­tion. They even­tu­al­ly set­tled the dis­pute and went their sep­a­rate ways with the SDMS sell­ing a plot of land at Carn­bee and the THS get­ting half an acre of land from the THA to build a tem­ple.

Beepath said To­bag­o­ni­ans should not be paint­ed with a broad brush as Ma­haraj did.

"I be­lieve that Sat Ma­haraj should apol­o­gise to the peo­ple of To­ba­go for what he said. The East In­di­ans in To­ba­go are wel­come on this is­land, we have a very good re­la­tion­ship with the To­bag­o­ni­ans, we have built a strong re­la­tion­ship with the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty, the East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty and we be­lieve Sat should apol­o­gise," she said.

She added that To­ba­go's mi­nor­i­ty East In­di­an com­mu­ni­ty are not wor­ried about any back­lash as a re­sult of Ma­haraj's state­ments since every­one on the is­land re­sides at a high­er lev­el of peace of har­mo­ny.

"I have been here on the is­land for 32 years. My chil­dren were born here and they went to school here. We live like a fam­i­ly and when­ev­er we have any pro­grammes here we get all the co-op­er­a­tion from var­i­ous groups and bod­ies, in­clud­ing the THA," she said.