IS hand suspected in vandalising of Los Angeles Gurudwara

Board members and community members of the Gurdwara Singh Sabha in Buena Park, a suburb of Los Angeles, said the gurudwara was vandalised on December 6. A community member’s truck in the parking lot was also vandalised.

“We are concerned about the safety and security of our community members. We are of the opinion that this is a hate crime and that this is a direct result of a possible backlash from the San Bernardino killings,” said Inderjot Singh, president of Sikh Gurdwara in Buena Park. The graffiti included the word ISIS,” and the words “Islam” and other reference of gangs,” Washington-based Sikh Council on Religion and Education said in a statement. The Gurdwara’s members reported the crime to the Buena Park Police Department and are actively cooperating with law enforcement officials probing the incident. The White House, which was informed about the incident, has forwarded the incident to the Department of Homeland Security to investigate. 

The Gurdwara is attended by over 800 community members on a weekly basis. The incident is the latest in a number of hate crimes against Sikhs in America. In September, a Sikh-American father was viciously assaulted in a suburb outside of Chicago after being called “Bin Laden”. In 2012, a gunman with Neo-Nazi ties walked into a Sikh Gurdwara and shot and killed six innocent Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.