MBBS COLUMNIST
My comments depend entirelyupon media information on thecase. Questions raised byNewspapers will not be repeatedagain. Let’s start with thepolice press conference with socalled community leaders. Now,who are these community leadersand who made them leaders?Does a couple of Gurudwaramanagement committee membersrepresent the whole Sikhcommunity of lower mainland?If Gurudwara managementcommittee members ofVancouver are community leadersthen there are many moreGurudwaras in Surrey.If Komagata Maru memorial islocated in Vancouver does thatmean that this incident painedonly Vancouver Sikhs? As anordinary citizen and as a Sikh itpained me a lot that withoutknowing full facts how so calledcommunity leaders accepted alame excuse of the police andVancouver mayor? One mustforgive and forgiveness is asacred principal of every religion.In Christianity the priestabsolves the sinner after confession.In Sikhism one is neededto confess and then Panj Piyarasabsolves after giving religiouspunishment. Even in a court oflaw one is given communityservice after confession. In thisparticular case police withoutevaluation from a mental healthexpert declared him to be sufferingfrom mental illness withaddiction and absolved him. It isa mental health expert whogives opinion after examiningthat a mental health client isresponsible for the crime or not.What was the mental statuswhen one committed the crime?How did the Police arrive at thisconclusion on its own?According to newspaper reportsthe suspect made many remarksand asked “what you guys aretrying to prove?” He reportedlythrew a soccer ball at the memorial.Then he urinated on thememorial and said I can piss onthis thing 40,000 times. Thisshows that the suspect knewwhat he was doing and shouldhave been held responsible forhis actions.But it looks Vancouver policeacted as mental health expertand gave their opinion of suspectbeing not responsible ofhis actions and our communityleaders accepted it withoutquestion and forgave the suspectwithout him confessingand apologizing in person.According to newspaper report,if there had been a medical evaluationwhen asked to the Policeby a reporter, the answer was“no”. When reporter asked ifthe suspect has mental issuesthen the police should declarethat, Khalsa Diwan SocietyPresident Sohan Singh Deo toldhim that the police cannot discussthat publically. Police had in fact already broken theconfidentiality clause by declaring publicallyin a press conference that this personhas mental illness and addictionissues. It looks Vancouver police andmayor somehow managed to pacify thecommunity by involving some so calledcommunity leaders. To avoid such botchups again I suggest there should be agroup chosen from Sikh community oflower mainland with whom police or anyorganization including main streammedia should contact rather a managementcommittee of one or twoGurudwaras. Making such a groupshould not be difficult as Managementcommittees of six Gurudwaras did jointogether during fast of Bhai GurbaxSingh. It could even be from managementcommittees of differentGurudwaras of lower mainland alongwith some well known professionalsfrom the community. Any such problemshould be thoroughly discussed in such acommittee before arriving at any conclusion.
