Gandhi statue exterior Hindu temple vandalised in New York | World News

In a potential hate crime, unidentified individuals have destroyed a handcrafted statue of Mahatma Gandhi with a sledgehammer at a Hindu temple right here after vandalising it earlier this month, media reviews mentioned on Friday.

Surveillance video reveals an individual thrashing a statue of Gandhi with a sledgehammer on Tuesday, earlier than smashing the pinnacle off and toppling it over, in keeping with cbsnews.com.

Minutes later, a bunch of six stomp on it and take turns hammering the statue earlier than taking off, the report mentioned.

"To see them coming after us like that is very painful," Lakhram Maharaj, the founding father of Shri Tulsi Mandir, located in South Richmond Hill was quoted as saying within the report.

Maharaj found the Gandhi statue was decreased to rubble on Wednesday morning.

The phrase "canine" was spray painted each in entrance of the temple and down the block, it mentioned.

The identical Gandhi statue was vandalised two weeks in the past, investigating officers mentioned.

"When the Gandhi statue was vandalised, that basically flew within the face of all of our beliefs and it is very disturbing for the neighborhood," Meeting member Jenifer Rajkumar mentioned within the report.

The New York Police Division is investigating each incidents as potential hate crimes, media reviews mentioned.

Maharaj says many locally are actually afraid to go to the temple.

"I can't present the congregation that I'm anxious as a result of if I present them that I am worrying and I am not sturdy, how will they be sturdy?" the report quoted him as saying. The temple authorities can't afford to switch the Gandhi statue, as a result of it was handcrafted and price about USD 4,000, the report mentioned.

"I need to know why they did it," Maharaj mentioned. This isn't the primary time that a statue of Gandhi was desecrated within the US.

In February this yr, an 8-foot-high Gandhi statue, situated in Manhattan’s Union Sq., was defaced by unknown individuals.

In December 2020, Khalistani-supporters had desecrated a Gandhi statue in Washington, DC in entrance of the Indian Embassy.

The then White Home Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, had termed the incident as “horrible”.