JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, May 23, 2025

Hindu temple in Penal desecrated, robbed

by

Sascha Wilson
970 days ago
20220925
Latchman Cassie, of the Lakrani Ganesh Mandir in Penal, shows a broken Lord Ganesh murti, after someone broke into the mandir last week.

Latchman Cassie, of the Lakrani Ganesh Mandir in Penal, shows a broken Lord Ganesh murti, after someone broke into the mandir last week.

RISHI RAGOONATH

Wor­ship­pers of the Lakrani Ganesh Mandir in Pe­nal are dis­ap­point­ed and up­set af­ter their tem­ple was bro­ken in­to and des­e­crat­ed last wee.

The per­pe­tra­tor smashed a mur­ti, pulled off the clothes from the oth­er mur­tis, stole a speak­er box and left a cig­a­rette butt be­hind.

The theft was dis­cov­ered by the tem­ple’s vice pres­i­dent Rekha Cassie when she went to open the tem­ple at Gopie Trace on Fri­day around 8 am.

The tem­ple was ran­sacked. A Ganesh mur­ti was in pieces on the ground and a large speak­er box was miss­ing. A flash dri­ve was al­so miss­ing but it was sub­se­quent­ly found be­hind a cup­board.

“We find cig­a­rette, like he was smok­ing and he pelt it in the back by the cur­tain. We lucky the tem­ple did not burn down,” said Cassie.

She be­lieves on­ly one man car­ried out the act, as he was seen via CCTV footage walk­ing along the road with their speak­er box.

Cassie said she would usu­al­ly open the tem­ple every day but it re­mained closed on Thurs­day be­cause of flood­ing in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Re­call­ing what she met on Fri­day, she said, “We saw the tem­ple was bro­ken in­to through the back door. The per­son kicked open the door, burst up the locks and en­tered the tem­ple, ran­sacked the tem­ple, came in­side, searched the mur­tis be­tween the clothes to see if there was mon­ey hid­den there, dam­aged our do­na­tion box and took one of the speak­ers from the tem­ple.”

She said they don’t leave mon­ey in the tem­ple but not­ed that dur­ing night­ly prayers, they pick up mon­ey and place it by the tem­ples.

Be­ing a self-fund­ed tem­ple, she ex­plained that the mon­ey is used to buy gro­ceries and pay the elec­tric­i­ty bill.

Cassie lament­ed the lack of re­spect be­ing shown for places of wor­ship.

“This is a tragedy. It is very de­press­ing. We did work in this tem­ple just a few months ago. We paint over, bought new chairs and we were look­ing for­ward to the Ganesh Ut­sav. Every­thing passed re­al­ly nice. The vil­lagers were hap­py. And right af­ter every­thing fin­ished, to come and meet this is re­al­ly de­press­ing.”

She said from tonight, they will be­gin an­oth­er three nights of wor­ship.

Giv­en this ex­pe­ri­ence, she had this ad­vice for oth­er places of wor­ship, “Just be care­ful, lock up. You nev­er know who could be in your tem­ple or in your church or in your mosque com­ing to pray, but some of them not just com­ing to pray, they just com­ing to scru­ti­nise to see what you have and what you don’t have so they could come back and car­ry it out.”

Cassie not­ed that the tem­ple does char­i­ty work in and around the area and she urged that if some­one is in need of help, they should ask for help in­stead of steal­ing from the tem­ple.

Sgt Bood­lal, PC Ho­sein and PC Ram­dass, of the Pe­nal Po­lice Sta­tion, vis­it­ed the scene and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

So far this year, sev­er­al places of wor­ship have been van­dalised and des­e­crat­ed, in­clud­ing a Hin­du tem­ple in Cara­po, the St Fran­cis Ro­man Catholic Church in Bel­mont and the St John’s An­gli­can Church in Pe­tit Bourg, where an his­toric bell was stolen.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored