Second Sikh student attacked in US school

New York: An American student has been taken into custody for allegedly Assaulting his Sikh classmate and for forcibly removing his patka.

The attacker was a ninth-standard student, who was suspended from Richmond School in Queens, a suburb in New York, reported the United Sikh, an advocacy group, without revealing the identities of the two boys.

The victim said that the classmate had been bullying him for some time, asking him why he did not shave and frequently pulling his patka.

In the incident, which occurred on Tuesday, the Sikh student tried to hold on to his patka when his classmate tried to remove it from behind and hit him in the face with keys.

The police have taken the attacker into custody.

This is the second incident of students from the Sikh community being targeted in US schools within a month.

Early last month, a 16-year-old student in New Jersey was charged with hate crime after he set a fire to a Sikh student’s patka.

“It is very disconcerting to learn that the administration at Richmond Hill High School failed to take the reports of bullying seriously,” remarked Baljit Kaur, the Project Co-ordinator of the United Sikh Awareness.

“Sikh students being bullied is a well-documented phenomenon stemming from fear, ignorance and misunderstandings concerning the unique Sikh appearance, particularly in the case of the dastaar, or the Sikh turban,” she said.

Sikhs have been the victims of hate crime in the US after the 9/11 attacks as they are mistaken for Arabs due to the headgear.

Providing information to students and answering questions about the Sikh faith and the reason behind a Sikh’s distinctive look would help allay fears, Kaur added.