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Help stop racial attacks on Sikhs: DSGMC to Swaraj, US Amb

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Press Trust of India New Delhi
Last Updated : Mar 07 2017 | 9:22 PM IST
The Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee today urged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and US Ambassador to India Richard Verma to take steps to stop racial attacks and discrimination against Sikhs in the US.
In separate letters to Swaraj and Verma, Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) general secretary Manjinder Singh Sirsa raised the issue of shooting of a Sikh Deep Rai in Kent near Seattle in the US with the External Affairs Minister and the US Ambassador to India.
He expressed serious concern on attacks on Sikhs in the US and said that this is "very shameful and shocking" that killings of the sikh people in the US over the past decade is continuing unabated.
Sirsa said that though Swaraj had been taking up issues keeping in mind the feelings of the sikh community but in spite of that the incidence of discrimination with the community by causing hurt, injury and sometimes killing is being repeated one after the another.
He said that the recent attack on one Deep Rai, son of Harpal Singh, was the latest one in the series.
He also stressed upon the setting up of a separate cell by the Ministry to take up these issues and suggested it should have members from the government and representatives of Sikhs from elected bodies namely DSGMC and Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC).
Sirsa said that along with this a proper campaign should be launched to ensure that such kind of incidents may not occur in future.
He also reminded Swaraj and the US Ambassador of the incidents that occurred in the recent past including the 2012 firing incident at the Gurdwara Sahib Wisconsin where an accused namely Wade Michael Page shot six sikh and wounded four others.
The issue of discrimination with Waris Ahluwalis, a sikh American actor, who was barred from boarding a Aero Mexico flight from Mexico after he refused to remove his turban and the incident of a Indo-Canadian Sikh comedian Jasmeet Singh, who was forced to remove his turban at a US airport and later barred from boarding a flight to Mexico.

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First Published: Mar 07 2017 | 9:22 PM IST

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