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Pan­di­ta Don­na Ram­cha­ran is call­ing for in­creased re­li­gious tol­er­ance in T&T fol­low­ing the in­stal­la­tion of two new life-sized mur­tis at the Jai Kali Maa Mandir in Car­li Bay on Sat­ur­day. The in­stal­la­tion comes sev­er­al months af­ter van­dals des­e­crat­ed the tem­ple and de­stroyed its orig­i­nal mur­tis dur­ing a Sep­tem­ber 2023 at­tack, part of a trou­bling pat­tern of van­dal­ism tar­get­ing Hin­du places of wor­ship over the past decade.

Pan­di­ta Ram­cha­ran, the tem­ple’s spir­i­tu­al leader, urged cit­i­zens to seek un­der­stand­ing rather than re­spond with fear or prej­u­dice to­ward un­fa­mil­iar re­li­gious prac­tices, par­tic­u­lar­ly those with­in Hin­duism.

“This is hap­pen­ing be­cause peo­ple don’t un­der­stand Hin­duism, and even more so, Shak­tism,” she said. “They don’t un­der­stand our di­vine moth­er Kali De­vi. When peo­ple turn a blind eye, they end up in­ter­fer­ing, van­dal­is­ing, and do­ing things that are just wrong. In­stead of de­stroy­ing, why not ask ques­tions? Come and find out who she is. Kali is our Vir­gin Mary, our moth­er.”