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Canada’s Lakshmi Narayan Temple hosts final consular camp amid threats
This was the last consular camp held by India’s Consulate in Toronto and nearly 250 life certificates were issued at the temple to elderly pensioners.
New Delhi: After three temples in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) had to cancel the scheduled events due to security threats, the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir in Scarborough successfully hosted a consular camp on its premises, on Saturday.
This was the last consular camp held by India’s Consulate in Toronto and nearly 250 life certificates were issued at the temple to elderly pensioners.
The temple was able to go ahead with the scheduled event as on Thursday, a judge of the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario, had passed a restraining order prohibiting protestors from gathering within 100 metre of it.
The interlocutory injunction barred all protest activities, including physically preventing, or interfering with access to within that radius of the Lakshmi Narayan Mandir in Scarbrough, from 8 am to 6 pm, on Saturday.
The camp was held amid enhanced security measures implemented by Toronto Police, as officer patrolled the area, and cruisers were strategically parked inside and in the vicinity of the temple.
However, while there was no disruption of the camp, about two dozen pro-Khalistan protestors collected at the prescribed distance and shouted anti-India slogans as well as those against Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They also called for a boycott of Air India and attacked “Hindu temples” for hosting the “Nijjar’s killer”.
That reference was to the killing of pro-Khalistan figure Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia on June 18 last year. Relations between New Delhi and Ottawa crashed after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated in the House of Commons three months later that there were credible allegations of a potential link between Indian agents and the murder.
The camp at the temple became the last held within the Toronto Consulate’s jurisdiction this year as another that was scheduled for Sunday was cancelled. In a post on X, the Consulate said, “The consular camp scheduled for 1 December at Kiwanis Centre, London ON, has been cancelled on request of the organizers in view of heightened threats received by them.”
India’s Consulate in Vancouver is expected to hold a camp at a banquet hall in Surrey, on Sunday.
Three temples in the GTA, the Brampton Triveni Mandir, the Toronto Kali Bari and the Vaishno Devi Mandir in Oakville, cancelled camps due to security reasons. These camps had been targeted by pro-Khalistan groups including the secessionist Sikhs for Justice.
Tensions were heightened after the violent attack by protestors on the Hindu Sabha Mandir in Brampton on November 3 as it was hosting a camp.
