London, Jan 18 (IANS) A 25-year-old Sikh has man has been fined and banned from roads for 22 months by a UK court for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Police found open cans of alcohol in Sukhpreet Singh's car after he was followed through a Derbyshire town swerving across lanes in November last year, the Derbyshire Live reported.
The Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court heard that Singh, a Pizza Hut worker and a resident of Higher Albert Street, Chesterfield, was driving without a license.
According to prosecutor Becky Allsop, a witness informed that Singh's car was swerving in and out of the zig-zag lines in the centre of the road, and vehicles travelling in the opposite direction had to flash their lights at him.
The witness, a driver, was following Singh's car and had informed the police about him.
The witness described the vehicle as coming to a stop in the middle of the road for no reason and then drove off again, still swerving all the way down the road, the report said.
"The road he turned into had two lanes in each direction and Singh crossed both the carriageways, went over the central raised pavement and came to rest facing the opposite direction to the way he should have been," Allsop was quoted as saying in Derbyshire Live.
Singh had a breath test reading of 77 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath -- almost twice the legal limit of 35, the court was informed.
Sajid Majeed, mitigating, said Singh has pleaded guilty, and had no previous convictions of any kind.
Majeed told the court that his client had moved to the UK with his wife from India and still takes care of the financial needs of his elderly parents back there.
The court fined Singh 250 pounds, ordered him to pay 85 pound costs, a 100 pound victim surcharge and disqualified him from driving for 22 months, according to Derbyshire Live.
The report added that the ban will be reduced by 25 per cent on the successful completion of a drink-drive awareness course, which Singh has agreed to undergo.
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 turbans.
The bodies of eight-month-old Aroohi Dheri, her parents Jasleen Kaur, 27, and Jasdeep Singh, 36, and her uncle Amandeep Singh, 39 were found in an "extremely remote" area near the intersection of Indiana and Hutchins roads. Jesus Salgado is said to have had a long-standing feud with the family and was a former employee in their trucking business.
Indian-origin people across the US have often been targets of robbers because they are believed to have lots of jewellery. The four, who had been under surveillance, were caught in another suburb, New Hyde Park, where they had targeted a house after following a woman, police said.
Claudio Campos, 28, attacked Avtar Singh in broad daylight as he was walking home from work through the Tib Street area of the City Centre on June 23. Campos, who was with his partner at the time, proceeded to walk up behind Avtar before violently punching him to the head. Singh fell into the middle of the road where he stayed unconscious until a passer-by called for an ambulance.
Quoting hate crime statistics 2021-22, Gill, an MP from Birmingham, said hate crimes against Sikhs rose by 169 per cent in comparison to a 38 per cent increase in reported religious hate crimes overall. The 2001 census recorded 336,000 Sikhs living in Britain. Gill said 301 hate crimes against Sikhs were reported in 2021-22, up from 112 in 2020-2021.
Jatinder Singh, 37, and his partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, 40, appeared by video link from prison in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday, where they were committed to stand trial over theft and other charges, the Canberra Times reported. Crypto.com intended to refund Manivel $100 but she was erroneously transferred $10,474,143.
