I blogged about this horrible incident before, where two Muslim teens held down a Sikh and cut his hair. Sikh religious beliefs make cutting hair taboo, but even if it wasn’t forcibly cutting someones hair is an activity which should be punished, right?
A teenager convicted of hate crime for cutting the hair of a Sikh schoolmate in the US has escaped jail time, shocking the community which is already seething after another student was attacked this week.
Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Joel Blumenfeld ordered Umair Ahmed, 19, to complete 180 hours of community service and write an essay about what he had learned since his attack on 16-year-old Harpal Vacher.
Based on Ahmed’s conduct in the next year, Blumenfeld will decide next June whether to put him behind bars.
“What you did was incredibly stupid,” Blumenfeld was quoted as saying by New York Daily News. ‘Incarceration just can’t be the only answer. For this next year, the threat of jail hangs over your head.’
Ahmed faced up to four years behind bars for the May 24, 2007, attack on Harpal, in which he dragged the Newtown High School freshman into a school bathroom, ripped off his turban and cut off his waist-length hair, prosecutors said.
Ahmed was irate over a taunt about his mother, authorities said.
A Queens jury convicted Ahmed of felony menacing and coercion charges, both hate crimes, along with weapons possession and harassment.
The verdict which angered Sikh advocacy groups came as New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein personally apologised to another Sikh student who was punched in the face with a set of keys by a teen trying to rip off his turban.
Following a rally calling for more protection for Sikh students, Klein met privately with Jagmohan Singh Premi, 18, who was assaulted Tuesday at Richmond Hill High School in Queens.
Premi suffered an orbital fracture and bruising during the incident, which led to the arrest of his 15-year-old attacker who has been charged with felony assault and harassment.
The classmate had reportedly pulled Premi’s beard and called him ‘dirty’ and a ‘terrorist’ for months in their English as a second language class.
Ironic, since rumor is the attacker in the second incident is also a Muslim. The Sikh are a group that have successfully integrated into America and don’t make demands for society at large to accommodate them. Muslim radicals are targeting them for just that reason, because as Americans see a group who can adhere to their religion without imposing on the public they will turn on the grievance mongering C.A.I.R. and similar groups.
These were both hate crimes and should be prosecuted as such. Were the victims Muslims and the perpetrators Irish, I think the case would have turned out much differently.
United Sikhs is protesting the sentence.