According to a media report on Thursday, a 17-year-old Sikh high school student in Canada’s British Columbia province was assaulted at a bus stop following an altercation with another teenager in what appears to be a case of hate crime.
The high school student is said to have been ‘kicked, punched, and pepper-sprayed’ during the incident, which happened on Monday in Kelowna near the intersection of Rutland Road South and Robson Road East, according to a report from CTV news.
‘Officers determined a 17-year-old Sikh student was either beer or pepper sprayed by another teenage male after exiting a public transit bus on his way home,’ a statement by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.
According to authorities, there was ‘an altercation’ on a bus before to the assault, which led to those involved being expelled.
The World Sikh Organisation of Canada claims that the student was also assaulted inside the car, though police have not provided any additional information.
The organisation said, according to the CTV news report, that ‘two people approached the student and initially prevented his entry onto the bus before allowing him to board and then started to threaten him with a lighter and photograph and record him from a close distance with their phones.’
The attack on a Sikh high school kid in Kelowna on Monday was described as ‘shocking and unacceptable’ by Guntaas Kaur, WSO vice president for British Columbia.
This is the second time this year that a Sikh kid using the city’s public transport has experienced such assault.
An unidentified group of men attacked Gagandeep Singh, a 21-year-old Sikh student from India, in British Columbia province earlier in March. They tore off his turban and dragged him across the pavement by his hair.
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