Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram and Coun­cil­lor for Cal­i­for­nia/Pt. Lisas, Ram­c­hand Ra­jbal Maraj have strong­ly con­demned the des­e­cra­tion of a tem­ple at Car­li Bay and called on the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures at the fa­cil­i­ty.  

Ac­cord­ing to a press from the MP,  the Car­li Bay fa­cil­i­ty re­mains un­se­cured hav­ing nei­ther CCTV cam­eras nor prop­er light­ing, mea­sures which the MP has been ask­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed since last year. 

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease MP Ravi Rati­ram: 

Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram and Coun­cil­lor for Cal­i­for­nia/Pt. Lisas, Ram­c­hand Ra­jbal Maraj have both ex­pressed strong con­dem­na­tion to­wards the re­cent des­e­cra­tion of a tem­ple at Car­li Bay, Cou­va, call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment once again to im­ple­ment ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures at the Car­li Bay fa­cil­i­ty. 

It was re­port­ed in the na­tion­al me­dia last week Thurs­day (29/09/22) that a mur­ti of the Hin­du God­dess Kali De­vi, which lies with­in an en­closed and se­cured shrine at the Car­li Bay Fish­ing fa­cil­i­ty was forcibly bro­ken in­to and des­e­crat­ed by un­known per­sons.  

The in­ci­dent was al­so re­port­ed on an in­ter­na­tion­al (In­di­an) me­dia web­site Hin­du Post and on Caribbean Na­tion­al Week­ly (see linked ar­ti­cles be­low). Ac­cord­ing to the lo­cal news ar­ti­cle, “one of the spir­i­tu­al heads of the tem­ple said she got a call around 1 am yes­ter­day from a devo­tee, who in­formed her that the tem­ple’s lock was cut and van­dals had bro­ken off the head of the mur­ti of Moth­er Kali and smashed it to pieces.”  

The area in which the shrine is lo­cat­ed is a sa­cred one, des­ig­nat­ed for rit­u­als and cer­e­monies, uti­lized by dif­fer­ent re­li­gious faiths. A sim­i­lar crime was re­port­ed last week when a tem­ple in Pe­nal was ran­sacked and des­e­crat­ed. Sev­er­al places of wor­ship in­clud­ing a Catholic Church in Bel­mont and an An­gli­can Church in Pe­tit Bourg have al­so re­port­ed like­wise in­ci­dents ear­li­er this year.  

MP Rati­ram notes that the Car­li Bay fa­cil­i­ty re­mains un­se­cured hav­ing nei­ther CCTV cam­eras nor prop­er light­ing, mea­sures which the MP has been ask­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed since last year, which he re­peat­ed the call for in his Bud­get Pre­sen­ta­tion on Sat­ur­day (01/10/22).  

Both MP Rati­ram and Coun­cil­lor Ra­jbal Maraj have joined with the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty in ex­press­ing their shock and dis­may over this lat­est in­ci­dent, which has been de­scribed by mem­bers of both the Hin­du faith and Cou­va North res­i­dents as a hate crime. The Cou­va North MP re­news his call to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds that in this fis­cal year, part of the $5.798 BIL­LION al­lo­cat­ed to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty be used to im­ple­ment these woe­ful­ly out­stand­ing is­sues at the Car­li Bay Fa­cil­i­ty post haste.