Unidentified individuals may have committed a probable hate crime by smashing a hand-made statue of Mahatma Gandhi at a Hindu temple in this area with a sledgehammer after it was vandalised earlier this month, according to reports in the media on Friday.
According to cbsnews.com, surveillance video captures a guy bashing a statue of Gandhi with a sledgehammer on Tuesday before severing the head and knocking it over. The statue is stomped on and repeatedly pounded by a group of six people moments later before they flee, according to the report. Lakhram Maharaj, the founder of Shri Tulsi Mandir in South Richmond Hill, was quoted in the report as stating, “To see them coming after us like way is very terrible.”
On Wednesday morning, Maharaj realized the Gandhi statue was in ruins. Both in front of the temple and down the street, it claimed, the word “dog” had been spray painted. Two weeks ago, the identical Gandhi statue was vandalized, according to the investigating authorities.
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Assembly member Jenifer Rajkumar stated in the report that “the vandalism of the Gandhi statue really flew in the face of all of our ideals and it’s quite troubling for the community.”
According to media reports, the New York Police Department is looking into both occurrences as potential hate crimes. Many people in the neighbourhood, according to Maharaj, are now terrified to visit the temple.
“I cannot show the congregation that I am anxious because if I do, how can they be strong while I am anxious and weak?” He was reported as stating in the report. The Gandhi statue was handcrafted and cost the temple authorities roughly USD 4,000, therefore they are unable to afford to replace it.
Maharaj responded, “I want to know why they did it. This isn’t the first time a Gandhi statue has been vandalized in the US.
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An eight-foot-tall statue of Gandhi that was in Union Square in Manhattan was vandalized in February of this year by unidentified people. In front of the Indian Embassy in Washington, DC, Khalistani supporters desecrated a Gandhi statue in December 2020. The episode was described as “awful” by Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary at the time.
