The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) said it has not­ed what is called the lam­en­ta­ble com­ments made by the In­ter Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) Head Pan­dit Lloyd Mukram Sir­joo re­gard­ing crimes be­ing com­mit­ted on Hin­du Tem­ples and places of wor­ship such as Church­es and Mosques through­out the coun­try.

In a state­ment the SDMS said while Pan­dit Sir­joo is en­ti­tled to his per­son­al views, he does not speak for the SDMS, nor is he a mem­ber of the Pan­dits' Parishad.

"In fact, the SDMS un­der­stands that Pan­dit Sir­joo's view on this se­ri­ous mat­ter does not even re­flect those of the oth­er mem­bers of the IRO," the SDMS said.

The SDMS said it stands by the re­cent state­ments made by its Pan­dit Parishad which called for greater col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions in treat­ing with the right of all cit­i­zens to wor­ship with­out fear.

"The SDMS is al­so heart­ened by the re­sponse from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice(TTPS) In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer, In­spec­tor Michelle Lewis who gave an as­sur­ance that the TTPS will in­crease their pres­ence to pro­tect Hin­du Tem­ples and wor­ship­pers," it said.

The SDMS said it re­mains com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing that all places of re­li­gious wor­ship along with at­tend­ing wor­ship­pers are pro­tect­ed.