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Australia: Documents Released by Police Point to ‘Hindu Hand’ in Temple Wall Defacement

The Australian police released five full and seven partial investigation documents to Sikh activist and author Bhabishan Singh Goraya, who had alleged that “Sikhs had been accused of vandalism without inquiry.”

Graffiti that was painted on our temple wall. Photo: Social media

Australia’s Queensland state police have released documents of their investigation into graffiti that defaced a temple’s outer wall in Brisbane. The papers suggest that they are ready to close this matter after getting no more leads from the complainants and there seems a “Hindu hand” in the anti-Modi graffiti that was “done on the night of March 3 but blamed on pro-Khalistan elements”.

As per The Times of India, the police said that they have no suspects in the case. The investigators proposed a theory that the Hindus defaced their own temple after shutting off the key CCTV cameras purposely and the serial offender who had done similar mischief in Victoria had then sneaked into Brisbane’s Sikh rally of March 4. Three more Australian temples have been defaced since January.

The daily cites documents made available by the Australian police in response to a right to information query. “The Australian police released five full and seven partial investigation documents to Sikh activist and author Bhabishan Singh Goraya, who had alleged that Sikhs had been accused of vandalism without inquiry.”

The news report also quotes from a supplementary report saying that: “The complainants have been unable to give us any CCTV footage… someone with no ties to the temple… may have been involved to encourage dissent between Hindus and Sikhs. The inquiry… did not show that it was in the area of offence during the time it occurred. All cameras went offline at about 6.30pm on March 3 shortly after being installed. It could be an installation fault or done with the purpose of facilitating the offence,” adding in all capital letters, “It is possible that the CCTV may have been purposely shut off.”

India Today had reported that the temple, situated in Burbank, a suburb in the south of Brisbane, was vandalised “with walls defaced with graffiti” in March this year. This was said to be “the fourth such incident involving a temple in Australia in two months”. The vandalism was noticed when devotees came for their morning prayers the next morning, wrote India Today.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi when on a three-day visit to Australia in May, in a somewhat unusual move, raised the issue of “the vandalism of Hindu temples”. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters, “I gave him (Modi) the assurance Australia is a country that respects people’s faith… that we don’t tolerate the sort of extreme actions and attacks we have seen on religious temples, be they Hindu temples, synagogues, or churches. This has no place in Australia.”

Source: The Wire

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Coverpage’s editorial stance.

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