Shas­tri Boodan

Head of the Ed­in­burgh Hin­du Tem­ple Pun­dit Ramesh Ti­wari has crit­i­cised the for­mer gov­ern­ment for il­le­gal wire-tap­ping. Ti­wari said so dur­ing his prayer to devo­tees at yes­ter­day's Karthick Saan cel­e­bra­tion in Ma­yaro. In prayer he said: "Clean the im­pu­ri­ties of our na­tion, es­pe­cial­ly the minds of those who are en­gaged in the il­le­gal prac­tice of the wire-tap­ping and those who seek to per­se­cute the ho­n­our of the right­eous."

Ti­wari al­so called on Moth­er Gan­ga, a Hin­du god­dess, to guide and bless the "moth­er of our na­tion and her sol­diers of dhar­ma that they con­tin­ue to hold fast." Com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist and for­mer lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Paras Ra­moutar, who al­so at­tend­ed yes­ter­day's cel­e­bra­tion, said: "The wire-tap­ping scan­dal paints a very gloomy pic­ture for democ­ra­cy in T&T." Hin­dus will con­tin­ue cel­e­bra­tions through­out this week as they pay rev­er­ence to Moth­er Gan­ga.