Shas­tri Boodan

Hin­du pan­dits will chant 5,000 mantras on Thurs­day, as part of pu­rifi­ca­tion and atone­ment rit­u­als that are to be per­formed at the Cara­po Hin­du Tem­ple which was des­e­crat­ed on Fri­day evening and Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

Le­gal Ad­vi­sor to the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, who is al­so a mem­ber of the Pan­dits’ Parishad, said yes­ter­day the tem­ple was a site of pil­grim­age for many Hin­dus.

Ram­bal­ly said when van­dals cooked corned beef on the com­pound last week­end and stole items, they con­duct­ed an act of sac­ri­lege at the holy site.

He said the atone­ment cer­e­mo­ny will in­volve the chant­i­ng of mantras and mak­ing of­fer­ings to Lord Vish­nu. This atone­ment, ac­cord­ing to Ram­bal­ly, must first be un­der­tak­en. He said up­on com­ple­tion, the SDMS will ad­vise of its po­si­tion mov­ing for­ward.

Yes­ter­day, the SDMS is­sued a state­ment signed by Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj and the sec­re­tary of the Pan­dits’ Parishad Pun­dit Rishi Ma­haraj, ex­tend­ing an in­vi­ta­tion to pan­dits and devo­tees to at­tend and par­tic­i­pate in the func­tion at 3 pm at the Ca­paro Shiv Mandir.

It read, “The SDMS un­equiv­o­cal­ly con­demns the re­cent acts of van­dal­ism/bur­glary/des­e­cra­tion, crim­i­nal­i­ty and re­li­gious atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted at the Cara­po Shiv Mandir SDMS branch 59, Cara­po, Ari­ma.

“As a re­sult of those shame­less, heinous and de­mon­ic mis­deeds, we would like to ap­peal to our Hin­du broth­ers and sis­ters and by ex­ten­sion, all those who de­nounce this gross dis­re­spect and blas­phe­my, to al­low nat­ur­al jus­tice to pre­vail as we seek refuge at the feet of Bhag­wan. In an ef­fort to re­store pu­ri­ty and atone­ment for the events that tran­spired, the Pan­dits’ Parishad, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with our par­ent body and af­fil­i­ate arms on the ad­vice of the Dhar­ma­charya and se­nior pan­dits guid­ed by our scrip­tures, will be un­der­tak­ing the nec­es­sary re­li­gious cer­e­monies.”

Pres­i­dent of the tem­ple, Naresh Timal, said the des­e­cra­tion at the tem­ple was heart­break­ing for many devo­tees.

“We were hav­ing a Moth­er’s Day pro­gramme and be­cause of this, we had to can­cel. The mem­bers were dis­ap­point­ed be­cause af­ter so long, be­cause of the pan­dem­ic, they would be meet­ing and gath­er­ing. Nev­er­the­less, they are look­ing for­ward to hav­ing the ser­vice re­stored at the Mandir,” he said.

Timal said the 100-plus devo­tees at the Mandir were stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty to en­sure every­thing moves for­ward.

“I am sad­dened by these acts car­ried out in this place of wor­ship. This will con­tin­ue to make us stronger. Unit­ed we stand to­geth­er and we will con­tin­ue to grow. We leave every­thing in the hands of the Lord be­cause we be­lieve in Kar­ma. This will not stop us. It will not de­ter us.”

Vice Pres­i­dent of the tem­ple, Han­sraj Ramd­hanie, said a num­ber of valu­able items were stolen from the tem­ple when it was robbed twice last week.

To add salt to the wound, thieves cooked corned beef in the pots used to pre­pare parsad and ate their sac­ri­le­gious meal in­side the tem­ple.

In Hin­duism, the cow is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of di­vine and nat­ur­al benef­i­cence and is, there­fore, pro­tect­ed and ven­er­at­ed. Hin­dus, there­fore, do not eat any prod­ucts made from cow meat.

Ramd­hanie said devo­tees found the fa­cil­i­ty bro­ken in­to on Fri­day and made a re­port to the po­lice.

He said the door was smashed in dur­ing a sec­ond at­tempt on Sat­ur­day morn­ing and ring stoves, gas tanks, ap­pli­ances and jew­ellery used to adorn the mur­tis were stolen.

Ramd­hanie said the tem­ple man­agers will erect bur­glar proof­ing among oth­er mea­sures to keep the crim­i­nals out of the place of wor­ship in fu­ture.

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