Swaminarayan Temple in Sacramento, California, Defaced With Anti-Hindu Graffiti
- The Sept. 25 incident comes 10 days after a BAPS temple in Melville, New York, was spray painted with threatening and derogatory messages.
A Swaminarayan temple in Mather, California’s defaced with anti-Hindu graffiti earlier this week. The BAPS ublic Affairs confirmed on Facebook that their temple near Sacramento was vandalized with the message, “Hindus go back.” Police have launched an investigation into the incident and have classified it as hate crime. According to news reports, water lines on the property were cut during the incident.
The Sept. 25 incident marks the second time in 10 days that a BAPS temple has been vandalized. On Sept. 16, the drive way and sign outside the the Swaminarayan Mandir in Melville, New York, was spray painted with threatening and derogatory anti-Hindu messages. The incident came a few days ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s U.S. Sept. 21-23 visit to the U.S.
A day after the California incident, lawmakers and community representatives gathered at the temple premises for a news conference and a prayer vigil. A press conference was held and addressed, among others, by Elk Grove mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen, Rancho Cordova vice mayor Siri Pulipati, and Sgt. Amar S. Gandhi, Sheriff’s Spokesman/Public Information Officer at Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) called the press conference “an important first step at the local level.” In a post on X, the foundation said “this latest incident represented an escalation in attacks since a previous aggression that cut the water lines to the temple.” It said it looks forward “to investigations continuing, similarities between the Melville, NY and Sacramento attacks being analyzed and justice being served.”
Several lawmakers and and representatives of human rights and community organizations condemned the incident. Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), who represents the northern Sacramento County, urged everyone “to stand against intolerance and ensure that everyone in our community, regardless of faith, feels safe and respected.”
“We must stand firmly in rejecting these forms of hatred,” wrote Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.).
BAPS Hindu temple in Sacramento, CA was vandalised overnight with anti Hindu slogans. Immediate action is need from the DOJ. The people responsible for such hate be identified and procecuted. https://t.co/O5Jpn4dUtF
— Shri Thanedar (@ShriThanedar) September 25, 2024
Similarly, Sunita Viswanath, co-founder of Hindus for Human Right, called the incident “deeply threatening to the community that worships there; nothing short of a hate crime. Praying for—and committed to building—interfaith peace and unity.”
The Mather temple vandalization is the fourth reported incident of vandalism at a Hindu temple in the past few months. In January this year, the Vijay’s Sherawali Temple in Hayward, California was desecrated with pro-Khalistani slogans. The temple was spray-painted with slogans such as “Khalistan Zindabad” and “Modi is terrorist.”
Two weeks before the Hayward incident, the Swaminarayan Mandir Vasana Sanstha in Newark, California, was defaced with pro-Khalistan, anti-Modi and anti-India slogans. The outer wall of the temple was defaced with slogans such as “Khalistan”, “Shaheed [Martyr] Bhindrawale”, “F$%k Modi Jindabad” and “Modi Is Terrorist.”