ECB is about differentiating Sikhs
from the word 'Asian.'
Its a Vision to help raise awareness
of Sikhs in the Western World,
their history,beliefs and identity.
LONDON: Incitement to religious hatred will become a criminal offence in England and Wales with the commencement of a new Act from Monday that will extend the protection to Hindus, Muslims and Christians, hitherto enjoyed by only Sikhs and Jews.
The Racial and Religious Hatred Act creates a new offence of intentionally stirr-ing up religious hatred against people on religious grou-nds, closing a gap in the current legislation.
Existing offences in the Public Order 1986 Act legislate against inciting racial hatred. Sikhs and Jews have been deemed by the courts to be racial groups and are protected under this legislation, but other groups such as Hindus, Muslims and Christians are considered to be religious rather than racial groups, and have therefore not previously received any protection under the law.
The new Act will give protection to these groups by outlawing the use of threatening words or behaviour intended to incite hatred against groups of people defined by their religious beliefs or lack of belief.
Home office minister Vernon Coaker said: "This Act closes this small but important gap in the law against extremists who stir up hatred in our communities. To be attacked or targeted because of your race or religion is wholly unacceptable."
"It can have a devastating effect on victims who can find themselves on the receiving end of bigotry and hatred."
"We are committed to protecting everyone in our society and legislating against this abhorrent behaviour. Our overarching goal is to build a civilised society where we can all achieve our potential free from prejudice," Coaker said further.
NEW DELHI: Scores of Sikh activists staged a protest demonstration here today against the closure of the 1984 Sikh riot case against Congress leader Jagdish Tytler.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday closed the case saying that most of the witnesses in the case are either dead or do not want to testify.
Angry protestors lashed out at the CBI decision.
"By closing the case they have betrayed the Sikh Community. They say they don't have evidence against him. I am ready to give evidence. I am ready to give copy of all the documents which were submitted to the Jain-Banerjee Committee, which was enquiring the riots," said Gurcharan Singh Babbar, President, All India Sikh Conference.
Tytler was appointed as Minister of State for Non-Resident Indians' (NRI) affairs after the Congress came to power in 2004, but he had to quit later.
Tytler has always denied the allegations levels against him saying, it was a political stunt by the opposition BJP.
Thousands of Sikhs were killed in one of the worst communal riots following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.
Congress leaders accused of leading the mobs have been absolved of the charges by lower courts.
People accusing Muslims of drugging, beating and raping Sikh women should be prosecuted for inciting religious hatred, an expert on religion has told Guardian Unlimited.
Philip Lewis, who is the Bishop of Bradford's aide on interfaith matters, was responding to claims posted by a group on the social networking site Facebook.
The group is called STOP OUR SIKH SISTERS BEING DRUGGED, RAPED, BEATEN AND USED FOR PROSTITUTION and claims that Sikh, Hindu and white girls from the ages of 13 to 22 are "being held against their will, drugged and gang raped" for the "pleasure" of Muslim extremists.
There is no evidence on the site to support the claims and Singh Kaur, the group's creator, provides no information about sources. But the group has attracted 2,900 members with nearly all of them young British Sikhs.
Dr Lewis said: "If there is a serious concern being raised then it's a matter for the police. If there is not a case to be answered, people need to be prosecuted.
"It is pernicious rumour-mongering that needs to be exposed. It's a form of slander. It is exacerbating relations between communities."
He said the issue was not on the radar of religious groups in Bradford, one of the "hotspots" cited by the group.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said there was no evidence that such activity was taking place in London, another allegedly "affected area".
One anti-racism activist urged people to either come forward with evidence or stop agitating.
Rob Deeks works for Aik Saath, a project that brings together Sikh, Muslim and Hindu youths from the Slough area, in Berkshire. It was set up after clashes between young people from different Asian communities.
He said: "Whoever is behind it is doing a good job of stirring up ill feeling. What's more worrying is there are 3,000 people who believe these claims."
The Facebook row is the latest salvo in an ongoing dispute between Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities about forced or aggressive conversions.
Senior figures from Hindu and Sikh groups have accused Muslims of using underhand, sometimes violent, methods to convert girls to Islam. There has never been a formal investigation and there is no official complaint on record.
However one Sikh organisation said there was evidence of "heavy proselytising" on university campuses. Indarjit Singh, from the Network of Sikh Organisations, said: "The community is very concerned."
BANGKOK (dpa) - The alleged abduction of a wealthy Thai-Sikh businessman turned out to be a case of "runaway groom," Thai news reports said Tuesday.
The parents of Sutheep Sajjadev, a 38-year-old Sikh with a successful drapery business in Bangkok, informed police last Thursday that they suspected their son had been abducted.
Sutheep's abandoned Toyoto Lexus was found the next day with bloodstains, an unwound turban, pieces of a smashed mobile phone and a note saying: "You have caused trouble to our family, so we have taken your child."
Bangkok police, however, smelled something fishy about the alleged abduction when tests proved the bloodstains were from an animal, not a human.
The case was wrapped up Sunday night when a sheepish Sutheep returned home and later confessed to police that he had concocted the abduction ruse in an attempt to avoid an arranged marriage being forced upon him.
Police have been assigned to keep a close eye on Sutheep for fear he may harm himself. It was not immediately clear whether charges will be brought against the family for lodging a false complaint.
Amritsar • Angry family members and sympathisers of a four-year-old girl yesterday blocked traffic and demanded police action against the erring doctors for allegedly removing a kidney that led to her death the previous night.
Sonia Dubey, a resident of Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh had been undergoing treatment for a tumour in her belly at the government Medical College here. The family members have blamed the doctors that a kidney was removed from her without their knowledge. The girl died in pain at a private nursing home after her belly swelled rapidly.
Parents found out about her missing kidney only after she was admitted to the nursing home, where her condition deteriorated. Doctors at the hospital informed the parents that one of her kidneys had been removed.
Family members protested outside the office of district authorities, demanding that a murder case be registered against the principal of the government medical college, J P Kaur Shergill, and other doctors who had operated upon Sonia and removed her kidney recently.
Shergill and another doctor, who performed the operation, were suspended last week by medical education and research minister Tikshan Sud. A probe panel of senior doctors was set up to investigate the matter.
"My child was killed by these doctors. They should be punished for this," an inconsolable Shridhar Dubey, father of the girl said.
A grandmother and her son were jailed for life yesterday for ordering the murder of his wife, who they claimed had disgraced their traditional Sikh family by having an affair.
Surjit Athwal, 27, was lured to India where it is thought she was strangled and thrown into a river nine years ago. Her body has never been found.
Judge Giles Forrester sentenced Sukhdave Athwal, 43, and his mother Bachan Athwal, 70, to life imprison-ment for the “heinous crime” of plotting her murder.
Mrs Athwal, a grandmother of 16, wept in the dock as she was ordered to spend a minimum of 20 years in jail. Her son was told that he must serve at least 27 years behind bars. The pair were convicted of murder earlier this year after family members, who had initially been threatened against speaking out, came forward to police.
The court heard that Surjit, a mother of two, “disappeared off the face of the earth” after going to India with her mother-in-law to attend a family wedding in December 1998.
The Customs officer had been having an affair with a colleague at Heathrow, and had been planning to end her unhappy, ten-year arranged marriage.
When she failed to return to England, the killers, from Hayes, West London, told worried relatives and the police that she was a “slag” who had run away with another man. It is believed that she was strangled while in the Punjab and her body was thrown into the River Ravi.
Before sentence was passed yesterday, Kalyani Kaul, for Bachan, said that the grandmother, who suffered a small stroke during the trial, may die in jail.
Jonathan Rose, for Sukhdave, a Heathrow bus driver, said he was a good father to his children.
But Judge Forrester said: “You can hardly be a good father if you have killed their mother. This was a heinous crime characterised by great wickedness. The crime was premeditated and there was a significant degree of planning.”
In a victim impact statement read in court yesterday, Surjit’s brother Jagdeesh Singh described how the disappearance had left her family “stricken with anxiety”, made worse by the fact that her body was never found.
“The Athwals had managed to murder my sister and it appeared that with their manipulation and planning, they were going to get away with it. Surjit’s murderers were going about their lives as if nothing had happened,” he said.
Mr Singh said that in reaching justice, his family had battled with the “incompetence and disinterest” of the Indian police, Foreign Office apathy and a slow initial response from the Metropolitan police.
After the hearing at the Old Bailey, Surjit’s family and Asian women’s campaigners delivered a letter to Gordon Brown attacking the “double standards” of intervening when white Britons such as Madeleine McCann go missing, but failing to take action after Surjit’s disappearance.
It may be one of the most polluted cities in India, but investors are scenting a profit in Amritsar
Dean Nelson
From the road, the yellow wheat fields that spread from the border with Pakistan to the Sikh holy city of Amritsar look like a Bollywood film set waiting for the dancers. It’s classic Punjabi pastoral, with turbaned farmers tilling the fertile land. The mistake is to open the car window: the black sludgy river in the foreground is an open sewer that doubles as a rubbish tip and chemical-waste dump.
Given the stench, it is few people’s vision of a place in the sun. But Britain’s Indian community detects a whiff of opportunity in the air, and is pouring its money into the area’s booming property market.
Amritsar is at the heart of the extraordinary boom that has seen the Indian economy growing at almost 10% a year – up from 3% a decade ago. The city has grown rich on the rise of call centres, IT outsourcing and textiles, and the money is beginning to flow into its property market.
“The residential property market has grown rapidly over the past two years, by an average of 60%-70% in Mumbai, 70% in Delhi, 60%-75% in Bangalore, and 95%-100% in Chennai [Madras] and Hyderabad,” says Harvesp Mehta, the national director of investments for the Indian office of the estate agency Knight Frank, which expects prices across the country to continue to rise over the next two years, albeit at a more modest rate.
Analysts expect that such growth will soon be replicated in “second-tier” destinations such as Amritsar, where Knight Frank says prices have gone up by 40%-60% over the past two years. “Some of these small cities, such as Baroda, in Gujarat, will grow by 5m people over the next 10 years,” says one British-Indian merchant banker in the City of London. “That makes them a good bet for British-Indians to invest in.”
Most of his Indian friends, he says, are hunting for “the next Bangalore” - a small Indian town with “worthless rice paddies”, he says, that became “multimillion-pound residential plots” when the city became the heart of India’s IT revolution. His picks have been in Goa and Calcutta.
There is no doubt that India needs more homes - about 20m more by 2012, according to government figures. Need is only a part of it, though; also crucial, in terms of the market, is desire. As India’s 300m-strong middle class gets richer, there is an increasing desire to escape the appalling infrastructure, the stench of the sewers, the erratic power supply and the squalid streets.
In general, the ideal property is a flat in a modern, gated community, where residents can show off the latest computerised lighting systems and wireless hi-fi, and have guaranteed electricity and water, and access to smart shops, pools and health clubs.
Happily for investors, the demand for such homes is easily outstripping supply, which is why leading western investment banks such as JP Morgan, Citigroup and Credit Suisse have raised £500m to invest in new building projects in India.
It is also why smaller entrepreneurs are betting on cities such as Amritsar. Take Amar Sodhi, managing director of Avatar International, in London. Last week, the first 48 off-plan flats from the company’s Windsor Apartments, about a mile from Amritsar airport, went on sale, with prices starting at £39,000 for a two-bedroom, 113-square-metre flat. The properties would not look out of place in the London Docklands. Designed to suit the taste of British-based Indians, they boast “gourmet kitchens” and whirlpool baths. There is also a club with pool, spa and squash courts.
The apartments are in one of India’s worst pollution blackspots. Yet half of the first batch have been reserved by investors confident of doubling their money before the keys are handed over in 2009.
“There are 25m wealthy Sikhs around the world, and Amritsar is the home of the Golden Temple,” Sodhi says. “There are 600,000 Sikhs in Britain alone, and they like to travel to Amritsar, but good accommodation is limited.” He is particularly encouraged by the decision of the Radisson chain to build a five-star hotel next door.
Joginder Nijjar, and his wife, Nirmal, both solicitors from Walsall, agree with Sodhi’s analysis. Over the past 18 months, they have remortgaged their UK home and thrown in their life savings to invest more than £1m in residential and commercial projects in Amritsar and Delhi.
Nijjar says he had considered investing in India in the past, during visits to relatives, but was put off by fear of corruption. “You always think you’re going to get ripped off, but now there are good companies coming into the market,” he says. “I’m hoping for a rise of a couple of hundred per cent.”
Dilip Patel, 47, a knitwear manufacturer from Leicester, and his wife, Illa, signed up two years ago to buy a two-bedroom flat in the Ozone development, in Goregaon, Mumbai. They paid £60,000; similar properties are expected to go for double that when the complex is completed towards the end of next year. “Now I’m looking for another flat,” Dilip says.
British-Indians can buy under special provisions for those classed as people of Indian origin. By contrast, those without an ethnic link to the country can do so only if they have spent 182 days in the previous financial year living in India on a nontourist visa.
The rules have already been relaxed for commercial property, and there is speculation that the government could follow suit for flats and houses. In the meantime, you can get around the curbs by establishing a company in India and buying a property in its name to rent out as a holiday flat.
Free with every purchase is the unmistakable smell of the subcontinent - but Sodhi, for one, does not expect it will put off the buy-to-let investors he’s targeting. “Some of these places do stink,” he admits. “As a child, I used to get asthma in nearby Ludhiana, but today it has more Mercedes cars than anywhere in India, and some of its houses sell for £1m. The smell won’t harm the investment.”
Tom Lantos, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee warned the Transportation Security Administration about religious profiling after it changed its screening procedures to include searches of turbans reports Rediff.com. The 14-term California Democrat said the new policy to pull aside airline passengers with headgear had led to harassment of Sikh passengers. Sikh Americans have been asked to remove their turbans, a fundamental symbol of their faith, at the airport. Since the new policy was instituted August 4, more than 50 such incidents have been reported across the country. "The lack of religious sensitivity and inconsistency in implementing this revised policy is astounding and disturbing,' Lantos complained in a letter to TSA Adminstrator Kip Hawley adding that he could not understand how 'an agency that took pride in working with religious and community groups after the tragic events of September 11, 2001 be so cavalier and discriminatory in its policy that affects those same groups just six years later.' He asked for the TSA to quickly enact changes. Three Sikh organizations, SALDEF, the Sikh Coalition, and UNITED SIKHS submitted a joint memorandum to TSA expressing their concern that the new procedures give screeners to much latitude.
Eastnor Castle, near Ledbury, is joining a nationwide cultural project this Sunday (September 23).
The castle is holding activities from 11am to 4.30pm as part of the Anglo Sikh Trail, which highlights connections between the Sikhs and Britain.
Musicians and dancers will perform Bhangra at 1pm before a lecture surrounding the castle's collection of Sikh war armour and weaponry starts at 2pm.
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Harbinder Singh from the heritage trail said: "Eastnor Castle's participation in Anglo Sikh Heritage Week will bring to life the remarkable history which represents its connection with Britain and the Sikhs."
For more information visit www.eastnorcastle.com or call 01531 633160.
A group of local Sikhs have been allowed to carry out a cremation in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
The authorities intervened after Muslims in the Old City stopped Sikhs burning a body at their traditional cremation site in the Qalacha area.
Sikh mourners carried the body to the presidential palace and UN headquarters until the chief of police escorted them back and the cremation went ahead.
Muslims near the site had complained about the smell from funeral pyres.
The long and fascinating history of the connections between Sikh and English cultures is to be celebrated during the forthcoming Anglo-Sikh Heritage Week.
Running from September 15-23 2007, this year will see an extended programme of events spread right across the country.
From an introduction to Sikh arms and armour at London’s Wallace Collection to Rangoli art workshops at Soho House in Birmingham, the events aim to show the shared history of British and Sikh people.
Other highlights include stories of the magnificent Koh-in-Noor diamonds in the Tower of London, a showcase of the Royal Geographical Society’s unique collection of original maps and photos from the Punjab and an exploration of the complicated relationship between deposed rebel prince Maharajah Duleep Singh and the Empress of India Queen Victoria at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail (ASHT) Project Manager Hema Raull said: “Exciting, informative, stirring and fun are some of the words used to describe the range of activities that took place last year during ASHT week.”
“This year is no exception. During ASHT week you can learn about Sikh history, culture and tradition through a variety of activities and by learning more about a range of fascinating characters.”
The week has been organised by the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail, a project of the Maharajah Duleep Singh Centenary Trust, which exists to promote Sikh heritage in Britain. The Trail covers a range of sites and institutions throughout the UK was launched in July 2004.
Visit the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail websiteto download a programme of events, learn about the trail and for more information about Sikh history and culture.
Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, September 9, 2007; Page A08
Like all practicing Sikhs, Gurpreet Singh Tuteja wears his turban as a sacred symbol of his faith and its values of discipline and austerity. Every morning, the Arlington County business consultant winds a long bolt of black or saffron cloth tightly around his uncut hair, where it remains until he returns home. He has worn the turban on hundreds of business trips, without incident.
But several weeks ago, when he was boarding a flight in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to return to Washington, Tuteja, 24, said he felt shocked and humiliated when a Transportation Safety Administration screener pulled him aside to "pat down" his turban as part of a new policy, even though he had passed through the metal detector without incident
"For us, the turban is a sign of respect for God. It is not like a cowboy hat. It was very uncomfortable having someone touch it," Tuteja said Friday. "I am all for the security of the United States. I am an American, too. But it should not come to the point where civil liberties are denied. I want the airways to be safe, but I also want my rights."
The new TSA policy, enacted Aug. 4 along with other rule changes, gives airport screeners additional discretion to search passengers' headgear, including turbans, which could conceal plastic or other nonmetal parts of explosive devices. Agency officials said the policy is not meant to single out any groups.
"We were looking at where people can hide" bomb components, TSA Administrator Kip Hawley said of the policy in a recent interview. "Whether it's a cowboy hat or a turban, this is what it is. And it was not directed at any one type of person or religion. It was directed at keeping bomb parts off of airplanes."
The measure set off an uproar in the country's well-organized Sikh community, whose members are sensitive to religious slights and are on guard against being unfairly suspected as terrorists. To many, the new rules seem to cross a line from inconvenience to insult, from prudence to prejudice.
About a half-million Sikhs live in the United States, with 10,000 in the Washington region. Many are technology and science professionals, and most are first- or second-generation immigrants from India, where Sikhism was founded several centuries ago as an offshoot of Hinduism.
"Our religion is one of peace and harmony, and our turbans stand for everything that is against terrorism," said Amardeep Singh, executive director of the Sikh Coalition in New York. "By saying that our turbans should be subject to additional screening, the federal government has equated our most precious article of faith with a terrorist implement."
Sikh groups, who say that about 50 Sikhs have had their turbans inspected since Aug. 4, said that the policy change goes against an agreement they made with TSA officials after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Under that agreement, Sikhs were allowed to wear turbans through airport detectors when other passengers had to remove their hats. If the machine did not beep, the traveler could continue. If it beeped, the turban would be screened with a wand, patted down, or removed and examined in a private screening area.
Under the new rules, even if there is no alarm, a TSA screener can ask to examine a turban.
"The procedure we came up with in 2001 was working fine. It was respectful of religious practice while also allowing airports to do screening," said Ranjit Singh, an official with the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund in Washington. The new procedure, he said, is misguided and subject to abuse. "A Sikh's turban becomes like part of his body. To have it removed is like being strip-searched."
As a result of the outcry, TSA officials have spoken with Sikh groups and plan to meet with them this week. Officials said they would normally have alerted Sikh groups to the changes but were focused on other adjustments, such as loosened restrictions on carrying lighters and breast milk.
"It wasn't intentional," Chris White, a TSA spokesman, said last week. "It was just an oversight."
The turban controversy is not the first clash between public safety and Sikh culture, which also requires male devotees to carry a small ceremonial dagger, called a kirpan, as a symbol of martial traditions. After dozens of post-9/11 confrontations over carrying kirpans in airports or courthouses, Sikhs have become accustomed to putting kirpans in checked luggage.
Muslim headscarves, crucifixes and Sikh bangles should be banned at schools unless they can be incorporated into the dress code, most parents polled in a survey by Reader’s Digest said.
Eighty-three per cent feel such religious symbols are unacceptable, while more than half (52 per cent) of parents also disapprove of faith schools, according to the poll by Reader’s Digest. The YouGov survey, of 565 parents with children at state school, shows disillusionment with the comprehensive school system. Parents want more homework to be set, are in favour of increased testing and would like to be more involved in their child’s schooling. If they could afford to, 59 per cent would send their children to private school.
At least 20 people were injured Monday, including 11 seriously injured, in a clash in Indian state of Punjab between a group of Sikhs and followers of a cult leader, who had triggered an angry row with the Sikhs some four months ago by dressing up like one of their faith's revered founders.
The incident erupted in Punjab's Mansa district when Sikhs objected to a prayer event organized by followers of Gurmeet Ram Raheem Singh, who heads the cult called Dera Sacha Sauda.
Singh's followers and Sikhs pelted each other with stones and used bamboo sticks, the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted police as saying from Punjab, the Sikh-majority state.
In May, newspaper advertisements showing the Dera head dressing up like Guru Gobind Singh, the revered Sikh figure, sparked fierce clashes between Sikhs and the cult followers in Punjab.
The Golden Temple, in Amritsar [Images], Punjab, glowed like a jewel on September 1, the 403rd anniversary of the installation of the revered Guru Granth Sahib in this Sikh shrine.
The Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs, was declared equal to a living guru by Guru Gobind Singh, the last guru of the Sikhs in 1708.
Guru Gobind Singh said that on his death the Guru Granth would become the next Guru. This book of 5,000 hymns and 1,430 pages is the receptacle of all Sikhs teachings as well as words of wisdom of other saints like Kabir and Tulsi Das.
From the 16th century onwards these hymns or couplets of religious discourse from all the Sikh gurus were gradually collected and assembled. It was finally complete in 1604 and installed in the Golden Temple
To mark this special day a procession, that ended at the Harmandir Sahib, was organised by the priests of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee. Wearing colourful robes devotees chanted hymns as they proceeded to the temple.
Photograph: A Sikh boy lights an oil lamp in front of the Golden TempleImage: Narinder Nanu/AFP/ Getty Images
Sikhs with turbans, Muslims who cover hair protest against policy they say discriminates
Sep 03, 2007 04:30 AM
Neil MacFarquhar NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON–A new U.S. government policy that subjects travellers who wear any type of head covering to possible additional screening at airport checkpoints has prompted vociferous protests from Sikh organizations, who say they are being singled out for ethnic profiling.
Muslim women who veil their hair are also expressing concern that the change – particularly because further screening is at the discretion of each screener – will single out Muslims.
"The federal government has equated our most precious article of faith with terrorism," said Amardeep Singh, the executive director of the Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group for Sikhs, whose faith dictates that men wear turbans, though some women do as well.
"To send a message that the turban is dangerous sends the wrong message to society."
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration, which adopted and is enforcing the policy, said that it was aimed not just at turbans but at any headgear and that it was one of the periodic adjustments made to address changing threats. It addresses nonmetallic threats including some explosives.
The change allows for screeners to pat down anyone who is wearing a hat or other head covering, even if the person clears a metal detector.
"It is a matter of when the security officer cannot reasonably determine that the head area is free of a threat item," said Amy Kudwa, a spokesperson for the agency.
The change was part of several adjustments made on Aug. 4, including allowing passengers to carry cigarette lighters and small quantities of bottled breast milk.
But the change regarding headgear was not publicized and came to light only after many Sikh passengers underwent additional screenings.
The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, which co-ordinates security policy across the country, has no plans to introduce similar guidelines.
"At this point the directive remains we search headgear only for cause," spokesperson Brigitte Caron told the Toronto Star's Robyn Doolittle. "It could be a cowboy hat. (All) headgear is treated the same."
Back in the United States, a Sikh businessman, Prabhjit Singh, said he was made to leave the screening line when he balked at the secondary search before an early flight on Aug. 17 from Baltimore/Washington International Airport.
Singh was not told of the new policy until after his turban was inspected by hand in a private room.
"The supervisor made me feel like I had done something wrong," said Singh, 27, a motivational speaker from Maryland. "I felt for the first time in America that I had been targeted, and it was because of the way I looked."
The fact that the policy was put into effect without consulting Sikhs also rankled the Sikh Coalition, which puts the number of Sikhs in the United States at 280,000, part of about 21 million in the world.
Kudwa said the Transportation Security Administration was now discussing the policy with Sikh leaders.
The Golden Temple, in Amritsar [
