In a potential hate crime, unidentified individuals destroyed a handcrafted statue of Mahatma Gandhi with a hammer at a Hindu temple right here earlier this month, media stories stated on Friday.
According to cbsnews.com, surveillance video reveals a person thrashing a Gandhi statue with a hammer on Tuesday, then beheading it and knocking it down.
The report stated that a couple of minutes later, a gaggle of six individuals stomp on it and take turns hitting the statue with hammers earlier than it may be taken down.
“It is very painful to see him following us like this,” Lakhram Maharaj, the founding father of the Shri Tulsi Mandir in South Richmond Hill, stated within the report.
Maharaj got here to know that the Gandhi statue had become rubble on Wednesday morning.
The phrase “dog” was spray painted each in entrance of the temple and on the underside of the block.
Investigating officers stated that the identical statue of Gandhi was vandalized two weeks in the past.
“When Gandhi’s statue was vandalized, it was really against all our beliefs and it was very disturbing for the community,” Assembly member Jennifer Rajkumar stated within the report.
Media stories stated the New York Police Department is investigating each incidents as potential hate crimes.
Maharaj says that many individuals locally at the moment are afraid to go to the temple.
“I can’t show the congregation that I’m worried because if I show them that I’m worried and I’m not strong, how will they be strong?” The report quoted him as saying. The report stated that the temple authorities couldn’t afford to exchange the Gandhi statue, because it was handcrafted and price round US$4,000.
“I want to know why they did this,” stated Maharaj. This is just not the primary time {that a} Gandhi statue has been vandalized in America.
In February this yr, the 8-foot-tall Gandhi statue positioned in Manhattan’s Union Square was defaced by unidentified individuals.
In December 2020, Khalistani-supporters desecrated a Gandhi statue in Washington, DC in entrance of the Indian embassy.
The then White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, described the incident as “horrific”.
With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
