SASCHA WIL­SON

Mem­bers of the Table­land AS­JA Ja­maat have been left dis­heart­ened over the re­cent van­dal­ism at their masjid.

The ceil­ing at the back of the build­ing was dam­aged as crim­i­nals made a failed at­tempt to gain en­try in­to the mosque.

How­ev­er, the in­ci­dent has re­sult­ed in the mosque hav­ing to spend more than $4,000 to have the ceil­ing re­paired. Some mem­bers have been left shak­en over the in­ci­dent.

Con­demn­ing the act, Imam Fa­reed Mo­hammed re­called that last Thurs­day (Sep­tem­ber 29), they left the mosque some­time af­ter 9 am, af­ter par­tic­i­pat­ing in prayer and the recital of the Quran.

When they re­turned around noon the fol­low­ing day, he said they dis­cov­ered the PVC ceil­ing boards hang­ing—some on the ground and some in pieces. A neigh­bour re­port­ed hear­ing a loud noise af­ter 11 pm on Thurs­day, but she dis­missed it as be­ing weath­er-re­lat­ed be­cause there was a lot of light­ning.  An­oth­er neigh­bour re­port­ed hear­ing his dogs bark­ing.

Lament­ing what he de­scribed as the dis­re­gard and dis­re­spect for hu­man life and places of wor­ship, the Imam said theirs were not the on­ly places de­faced and dam­aged by the crim­i­nal el­e­ments. He said cit­i­zens are not on­ly be­ing robbed of their world­ly pos­ses­sions but their peace of mind, as they live in fear.

“In so­ci­ety to­day, when so much is tak­ing place, peo­ple are sup­posed to be their broth­er's keep­er and look af­ter each oth­er's wel­fare,” Imam Mo­hammed said, “but in­stead crim­i­nals are ter­ror­is­ing peo­ple.”

He not­ed that years ago un­der the charge of his fa­ther, Imam Sheik Nazrudeen Mo­hammed, who died from COVID-19 last year, the mosque was bro­ken in­to, and the thieves made off with the DVR for their CCTV sys­tem. 

Imam Mo­hammed told Guardian Me­dia he in­tends to put mea­sures in place to safe­guard his mem­bers, in­clud­ing sourc­ing an­oth­er DVR.

Table­land po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing. 

Over the last two weeks, at least two Hin­du tem­ples were bro­ken in­to and des­e­crat­ed—the Kali Ma­ta Tem­ple in Car­li Bay, Cou­va and Lakrani Ganesh Mandir in Pe­nal.