Vickrum Digwa, 23, was found guilty of fatally stabbing Henry Nowak, 18, with a 21-cm dagger last December and his mother, 53-year-old Kiran Kaur, was convicted of assisting an offender at Southampton Crown Court on Thursday.
During the trial, Digwa had denied the murder charges and claimed to have used the knife he carried ceremonially in self-defence. The case threw the spotlight on the kirpan, with far-right groups such as the Restore Britain party calling for a ban.
“Calls to ban the kirpan in response to this murder risk unfairly targeting an entire community for the actions of a single criminal individual,” the City Sikhs Foundation said in a statement.
“The actions of one individual can never and should never be used to define an entire faith community. The British Sikh community is one of the most well-integrated and law-abiding communities in the UK, with a proud history in this country spanning more than 160 years.
“The kirpan is a symbolic article of faith for Sikhs initiated into the Khalsa tradition. It is a constant reminder to Sikhs of the need to defend the most vulnerable in society, and it has been worn responsibly in Britain for generations,” it said.
The charity reiterated that it “utterly condemns” the horrific murder of Nowak and the individual responsible for the “appalling act”.
“We urge unity, calm and responsible public discourse at this very difficult time,” it added.
The murder trial highlighted the legal parameters around the Sikh community’s right to carry a kirpan, with Judge William Mousley noting that under UK law such a bladed item must be for religious or self defence reasons.
“This is not a case about Sikhism. This is not a case about racism. This is a case about murder,” prosecutor Nicholas Lobbenberg had told the jury before it found Digwa guilty of murder and possession of a bladed article.
Sikh Federation UK also condemned the “unlawful killing”, which it feared had “unnecessarily stirred up community hatred”.
“We understand in this case the weapon that may have been used was not the normal kirpan worn by fully practising Sikhs. This nuance is critically important and may not have been explained or understood by those asked to give evidence in this case,” the group stated.
“Now the trial is over we want to make absolutely clear the law only provides fully practising Sikhs with a defence under the law to wear a kirpan for religious reasons. If a kirpan or a bladed item is used aggressively in an act of violence, the defence under the law for a kirpan does not apply and it is deemed an offensive weapon,” it added.
The issue was compounded by the actions of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary officers, who are now facing an Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) probe for handcuffing the victim when they first arrived at the scene of the crime.
The court heard that Digwa had alleged being racially threatened by Nowak and even denied that any weapon had been used. Once the severity of Nowak’s condition became clear, the police removed the handcuffs and an ambulance was called.
“I am deeply sorry that in the moments he lost consciousness, he had been handcuffed and arrested,” said Robert France, Temporary Deputy Chief Constable of the Constabulary.
Digwa is set to be sentenced on Monday and his mother on July 17 for her role in removing the eight-inch murder weapon from the scene of the crime in Portswood, south-east England, in the early hours of December 4 last year.
Reform UK MP Robert Jenrick has written to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and called for an overhaul of the police’s “anti-racist training programmes”.
“His [Nowak’s] tragic death should be a turning point. A clarion call for the authorities to act in a colour-blind way – treating people under the principle of equality before the law,” he said.
– Ends
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