Sikh trio fights to keep turban, beard at US Marine boot camp
Darpan News Desk IANS, 14 Oct, 2022 12:40 PM
New York, Oct 14 (IANS) Three Sikh recruits, working to join the US Marine Corps, fought for an emergency appeal in District of Columbia's federal court to get an immediate exemption to the Corps' boot camp rule of cutting their hair and shaving their beards.
The three plaintiffs -- Aekash Singh, Milaap Singh Chahal and Jaskirat Singh -- want to attend Marine Corps basic training without having to shave their beards or forgo their traditional turbans during boot camp.
A three-judge panel expressed skepticism that the Marine Corps had a good reason to deny religious exemptions to its grooming standards but questioned why the plaintiffs required emergency relief, the Marine Corps Times reported.
No decision on the motion was made by the judges.
The trio had appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in September after a lower-court judge denied their request for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the men to enter boot camp with their articles of faith, the Marine Times reported.
In Sikh faith, men wear turban and they do not shave off their beards or cut hair.
The Marine Corps previously denied all these requests, due to which the trio for years have remained poolees -- an individual who has already signed up to become a Marine but has not yet left for the recruit training at boot camp.
"We continue to believe that the Marine Corps is doing a disservice to both our clients and itself in denying basic rights that are recognised by other branches of our military and under the US law," said Giselle Klapper, Sikh Coalition Senior Staff Attorney.
In April 2022, the Sikh Coalition -- a New York-based advocacy group, Winston & Strawn, the Becket Fund and BakerHostetler, with support from the Sikh American Veterans Alliance had filed suit against the US Department of Defence on behalf of the trio.
"Time and again, Sikhs in the US Army and Air Force -- along with military forces around the world -- have proven that their articles of faith pose no barrier whatsoever to capable military service," said Amandeep S. Sidhu, partner at Winston & Strawn LLP.
"Prohibiting Sikhs from joining the Marine Corps is out of step with the rest of our military, as well as the most basic values that our country holds dear," Sidhu added.
Amid an ongoing resurgence across the world, the global coronavirus caseload has topped 333.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 5.55 million and vaccinations to over 9.68 billion, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The embassy officials are also in touch with the immediate family members of the deceased Indians. The embassy, however, has not revealed their identity. Among the six injured in the blast on Monday, two are Indian nationals, who were treated at an Abu Dhabi hospital and later discharged.
The massive shockwaves due to the eruption of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai in Tonga were also felt across India, meteorologists said on Monday. In fact, almost 12 hours after that, i.e., on Sunday morning, an amateur weather enthusiast from Goa, Atul Naik, posted on Twitter another graph that showed the second peak too.
In an unprecedented move, the community leaders gathered at Gurdwara Shri Guru Singh Sabha, Park Avenue, and challenged the prevailing anti-India narrative propagated by Khalistanis and their backers.
Indian-American Saurabh Chawla, who bought stolen Apple products from school employees in the US and sold those on eBay and Amazon, has been sentenced to 66 months in prison.
The Taliban has announced that they will resume the hiring process of Afghan government employees, excluding female staffers, the media reported on Tuesday.
