Canada police investigate Surrey temple desecration

As Canadian police investigate the vandalisation of a temple in the town of Surrey in British Columbia on Saturday, its management has said it will exert pressure on law enforcement and elected officials to ensure those behind the desecration are arrested and such acts not repeated in the future.

Officers from the Surrey detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or RCMP have visited the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir on multiple occasions since the desecration and have gathered clues, including CCTV footage of the miscreants, the temple’s president Satish Kumar said.

India has also formally raised the vandalisation of the temple with anti-India and pro-Khalistan posters, with Canada’s foreign ministry, Global Affairs Canada.

A statement posted by the temple management said, “Khalistanis are trying to provoke Hindu and Sikh community and damage peace and harmony.”

“Let us stand united and send a strong message,” the statement added.

The temple’s board has decided to hold a meeting on Tuesday evening. It has invited local MPs, members of the British Columbia legislature, as well as municipal leaders. “We want them to come out in solidarity and support us in public,” Kumar said.

“We want them to act because this matters to the community,” he stressed, referring to the police and politicians.

The vandalisation came as pro-Khalistan elements have called for besieging India’s missions in Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto on August 15.

The poster at the front gate of the temple had the word Wanted under the names and photographs of India’s High Commissioner to Ottawa as well as its Consul Generals in Toronto and Vancouver. The second, stuck to the rear doors, called for Canada to investigate India’s “role” in the “assassination” of Khalistani leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on June 18.

Similar posters have appeared across Surrey in recent days. Such a poster was placed outside the entrance to the building housing India’s Consulate in Vancouver on August 1 and also carried by several persons at a religious parade in Surrey last Sunday.

The series of posters have referred to the killing of Nijjar, the secessionist group Sikhs For Justice’s principal figure in British Columbia. Nijjar was murdered in the parking lot of the Guru Nanak Singh Gurdwara Sahib he headed in Surrey on June 18. SFJ has blamed India for his “assassination”.

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team or Investigation Team or IHIT, which is probing the killing, has not ascribed any motive while it seeks the murderers.

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