‘NO MALICE’ INVOLVED IN CUTTING OF SIKH BOY’S HAIR? PFFFTT!

‘Sikh boy’s hair cut by attackers’ is a BBC story from 2006.

BBC called it a “racist assault” because the 15-year Sikh boy in Pilrig Park, Ediburgh — who was punched and kicked — was also at the same time subjected to verbal racial abuse by four young white males.

In the UK, it was viewed as a ‘hate crime’ and the BBC reported it as “an act deeply offensive to Sikhs because of the religious importance of their hair”.

In Malaysia, a similar act perpetrated on a Sikh teen is reported as:

“An investigation has found no malice involved in the cutting of the hair of a National Service (NS) trainee, NS Training Department director-general Datuk Abdul Hadi Awang Kechil said.”

The same Star article quoted Abdul Hadi as urging, “I hope the public will not speculate further on this case.”

Other things can happen to the trainees than insult of religious custom. Trainees can even die in the National Service camps.

The Wikipedia citation on the NS programme says:

As of June 2008, there have been 17 deaths since the programme started in 2004, with 12 trainees dying in the camps and five more during breaks or within days of completing the program.

Among them:

• Awang Mohd Fazil Awang Borhan (drowned),
• T. Saravana (drowned), Nurul Ashikin Karino (fell during training),
• S. Theresa Pauline (fits/death attributed to ‘viral meningoencephalitis’),
• Haziq Jaafar (died after a fight with another trainee),
• Teng Shian Shen (died two weeks after being asked to return home due to breathing difficulties),
• Ili Ameera Azlan (died after suffering breathing difficulties),
• Prema Elenchelian (found unconscious in a toilet),
• Mohd Rafi Ameer (died after running a fever for a week/leg swollen for nearly a week after he fell during training),
• Too Hui Min (died three days after complaining of constipation),
• Afiq Zuhairi Ahmat Rozali (died a brief ‘febrile illness),
• Abdul Malik Ishak (found dead in his bed).

courtesy of Hartal MSM