Deity Stolen From South Africa Temple

Johannesburg:

An over-a-century-old silver statue of revered Hindu deity Shakti, brought by an indentured labourer from India, was stolen along with a number of other items from a temple in South Africa, leaving the community heartbroken with the theft of the historical idol.

The statue, made of solid silver, was among a number of items stolen from the Arupta Temple in the mainly Indian suburb of Isipingo Hills in Durban, where the first indentured labourers landed by boat in 1860.

Trustee of the temple Omela Moodley said that her grandfather Murugasa Coopsamy Naicker had initially kept the statue in his private temple at his residence in another suburb of Durban, Clairwood, but after his death, it was donated to the temple when the surviving family relocated there