Reasi, Jammu and Kashmir:

Sending out a message of religious harmony, two Muslims in the Reasi district have forward to donate their land for a 500-year-old Hindu temple that lacked proper accessibility. A road connecting the temple will be constructed on the land.

Gulam Rasool and Gulam Mohammad, residents of Kheral panchayat, have donated their four kanal of land to the panchayat, with an estimated cost of over one crore rupees, where a 1200-metre road will be constructed with a 10-foot width for Gupt Kashi – Gouri Shankar temple in Kansi Patta village of Reasi district.

Authorities said the road will be built soon using panchayat funds.

Gulam Rasool, a former panchayat member and farmer, said some people tried to create a rift in society by citing the road issue.

“The temple didn’t have any proper road. Some people had even run a hate campaign intending to create a rift,” he said.

To protect communal harmony, a meeting of the panchayat members and revenue officials was held recently. During the meeting, the landowners, Gulam Rasool and Gulam Mohammad, agreed to hand over some portions of their land for the road.

Meanwhile, the temple is also getting ready for renovation. The temple owns some more land in the area. The matter related to the land has been brought to the attention of District Development Commissioner Reasi.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New York:

A Hindu temple in the US State of California has been raided by burglars who stole a donation box from the premises, leaving the Indian community in a state of shock.

The incident took place on Monday at the Hari Om Radha Krishna Mandir in the Parkway neighbourhood, at about 2:15 am, the Sacramento Bee newspaper reported.

The Sacramento Police Department is investigating the burglary at the Hindu Temple.

Police did not disclose what was stolen, but dispatch audio indicated a donation collection box was taken.

Dispatchers told people that six suspects were seen on the grounds through surveillance video, including two who were inside the temple, when police were called, the report added.

Police said no arrests have been made, but the incident remains under investigation.

Meanwhile, condemning the incident, the US-based advocacy organisation Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) has asked the Sacramento Police to take this issue very seriously and investigate it as a potential hate crime.

“Disturbing news from Sacramento, California where a #HinduTemple has been broken into. We ask @SacPolice to take this issue very seriously and investigate it as a potential hate crime and the violation of a sacred space. Police are asking for public help in identifying the suspects,” they posted on X.

Guru Maharaj and his wife were at home when they received an alert.

“The first thing I saw was the curtains blowing and I said, ‘Oh, my God. Somebody is in the building,’ ” Maharaj’s wife was quoted as saying by the CBS news.

As footage from the temple showed, someone tried to break through three doors and a car.

“They went right through to the donation box in darkness,” Maharaj said.

The footage shows the thieves lifting the box up and carrying it out behind the building. They hoisted the box, which reportedly weighed close to 100 pounds, over the fence then shoved it in a getaway car and took off.

“It’s a very big hit to our community and we’re here to help people out,” Maharaj said. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The United States is set to get its largest temple next month. The BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham, located 90 m south of Times Square in New Jersey, will be formally inaugurated on October 8.

The 183-acre temple took nearly 12 years to be built and its construction involved over 12,500 volunteers from across the US.

Located in New Jersey’s Robbinsville Township, the temple is possibly the second largest after Angkor Wat in Cambodia, a UNESCO World Heritage site spanning across 500 acres.

The Akshardham temple in Delhi is spread over 100 acres.

The Swaminarayan Akshardham temple in US has been designed as per the ancient Indian culture. There are over 10,000 statues and carvings of Indian musical instruments and dance forms at the temple.

Besides a main shrine, the temple has 12 sub-shrines, nine shikhars (spire-like structures), and nine pyramidal shikhars. It also has the largest elliptical dome of traditional stone architecture.

Nearly two million cubic feet of stone, including limestone, granite, pink sandstone and marble, was used for its construction. They were sourced from different parts of the world, including India, Turkey, Greece, Italy and China.

At the temple, a traditional Indian stepwell called the ‘Brahma Kund’ has the water from over 300 waters bodies across the world.

The temple will open for visitors from October 18.