NEW DELHI: Three football loving Americans, who happen to be turbaned Sikhs, were harassed as authorities tried to bar them from attending an NFL game over the weekend.
Denver Broncos fans Varinder Malhi and friends were sporting jerseys, hats and other paraphernalia as they headed to the game at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego on Sunday, but their turbans prompted San Diego Chargers security to refuse them entry to the game.
The security officials reportedly insisted that the men remove their turbans. They were ultimately allowed in, but with the warning that they would not be able to wear their turbans again if they came back to the stadium.
Things didn’t get any better once the three friends entered the stadium. Someone at the game called San Diego police to report that the men were rummaging in the trunk of a car and then left the parking lot, police told ABC San Diego.
Someone else took a photo of a sniffer dog inspecting the vehicle used by the three friends, and sent it to the TV station.
And what was this suspicious object that the men had put in the trunk of their car? An ordinary bag!
"It’s bad, I mean, this is embarrassing for me, because we are Americans at the end of the day," Malhi told ABC. "And we are not supposed to be afraid of fellow Americans.”
Sikhs have been routinely targeted in the US, as anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise and the community is often mistakenly associated with Islam. In August 2012, a massacre took place at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, where 40-year-old Wade Michael Page fatally shot six people and wounded four others. All the victims were Sikhs.
In 2013, an 82-year-old Sikh man was brutally assaulted outside a Gurudwara in California. Piara Singh was attacked while preparing free meals for the homeless. He suffered a punctured lung and head injuries and was left lying in a pool of blood.
In September this year, a Chicago teenager already charged with punching a Sikh man during what authorities describe as a road rage incident was charged with a hate crime. The teen yelled racial slurs from his vehicle at 53-year-old Inderjit Mukker.
Sikhs in the US feel that things have only gotten worse since the Paris attacks. A report by AP quotes Pardeep Kaleka, a Sikh in the US and a former police officer and teacher, saying, “For us it does not matter who they're targeting… This time we cannot differentiate ourselves; when hate rhetoric is being spewed we cannot be on the sidelines." Kaleka’s father was killed in the Wisconsin attack.
Across the U.S., Sikhs and Muslims are banding together to defend their respective religions. Someone bent on harming Muslims wouldn't understand — or care about — the distinction between the two faiths, they say, and both also deserve to live in peace.
At the time of writing, the White House issued a statement attempting to reassure Sikhs and Muslims alike. On a conference call Monday with religious leaders, top White House officials pledged vigilance by the Justice Department in pursuing hate crimes and other civil rights violations, calling an attack on any faith an attack on all faiths, AP reported.