A Hindu temple in Dollard-des-Ormeaux says it was the target of arson, but police are treating it as an accident.
"When [the perpetrators] saw us, they sped off," said Sivaraman Sivanathan, a member of the temple.
He says a caretaker at Thiru Murugan Temple noticed smoke around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday as the fire burned sections of cloth that cover a ceremonial chariot.
The damage was limited following heavy rain this week, which may have left the fabric wet.
“The fire brigade and the police came in and they made a report,” he said.
While members of the temple believe the incident was hate-motivated, police told CTV they haven’t found evidence to suggest criminal intent.
A spokesperson for the city says firefighters called the incident a “garbage fire.”
Still, temple members have erected a fence around the building with hopes that it will prevent other fires.
“It’s not going to stop them, but it will at least slow them down,” said Sivanathan.
The temple's staff say the building has been targeted before. Previously, they say, someone broke the arms off statues at the temple and caused heavy damage to the statues' faces.
Around 15 years ago, there was a large fire at the temple, which staff says was deliberately set.
Fo Niemi told CTV anyone who believes they have been a victim of a hate crime needs to be explicit when reporting such incidents to police.
“They should be very explicit,” he said. For example, “’We believe that it's hate-motivated,’ ‘we want to report as a hate-motivated incident,’ or ‘we believe that we've been a target of a hate crime’,” he said.
“Especially in with institutions, like in this case, that has a history of vandalism that could be hate-based or hate-motivated, it’s important to say so in order to better document it,” he said.
Montreal police said if more information becomes available, Sivanathan should report it to them.
