- Tuesday, March 04, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
A Hindu temple in Melbourne, Australia, has received a threat call asking to cancel a religious programme or face consequences. The Australia Today reported that the priestess of the Kali Mata Mandir in Craigieburn suburb of the Australian city got the call on Tuesday (14) from a man who spoke in Punjabi.
Bhawna, the priestess, said she received the call from a ‘no caller ID’ (not showing the caller’s phone number).
She said the caller, who was speaking in ‘Amritsar-Jalandhar’ Punjabi, threatened her to call off a bhajan programme by a singer scheduled for March 4. She added the caller accused the singer as a ‘kattar’ (staunch) Hindu.
“Twannu pata hai vo banda kattar Hindu hai, vo aaya te panga ho jana hai mandir te (you know that the singer is a staunch Hindu. If he comes, there will be trouble at the temple),” the caller said, as per the priestess.
She told The Australia Today that she pleaded with the man saying even Guru Govind Singh, the final Sikh guru, had prayed at the temple of Hindu goddess Kali.
“I pleaded with him, bhai ji this is Ma Kali’s (Hindu Goddess Kali) place, even Guru Maharaj (Guru Govind Singh) used to pray here. Why would someone come and fight here?” she was quoted as saying by the news outlet.
The incident comes in the wake of a series of attacks on temples in Australia and other countries by people allegedly following the Khalistani movement.
While there have been instances of vandalism of temples in Australia, a Ram temple was defaced in Canada’s Mississauga last week as miscreants scribbled anti-India graffiti on its walls.
In India’s neighbour Bangladesh, too, unidentified miscreants attacked several Hindu temples and destroyed Hindu idols in the recent past.
