Police are investigating the “suspicious” death of a local student. By David Schultz August 13, 2007 The death of a 21-year-old college student on the side of an Arlington highway earlier this month has caused controversy in a local Sikh community and has caused local police to conduct an investigation. Simran Singh, a George Mason University student from Burke, died in the early morning of Aug. 4 while traveling by car from Washington, D.C. to Arlington. Singh and several acquaintances were on southbound I-395 when, according to a police report, Singh became violent. After the other occupants of the vehicle tried to restrain him, they noticed that Singh was non-responsive. The vehicle pulled over near the Glebe Road exit where one of the occupants performed CPR on Singh until medical personnel arrived. He was taken to Inova Alexandria Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 2:09 a.m. Arlington County Police are investigating Singh’s death and have described it as “suspicious.” However, they have not labeled the incident a homicide. Police spokesperson Steve Gomez said that detectives will decide whether to change the case’s classification after the Medical Examiner issues a report next month specifying the cause of Singh’s death. Because the death has not been ruled a homicide yet, Gomez said that police have not identified any suspects or persons of interest. Priti Patel, who was dating Singh at the time of his death, said that Singh was a happy and outgoing person with no enemies that she knew of. She spoke to him a few hours before he died and said he sounded normal. “He didn’t sound intoxicated at all,” she said. Patel also said that Singh was planning on moving to Canada in a few weeks. “He had been in Virginia a majority of his life,” she said. “He said he needed a change of scenery… He wanted to move somewhere that was a little more liberal.” According to Rajbir Datta, the executive director of the Sikh-American Legal Defense and Education Fund who has been involved with Singh’s family since his death, Singh went out the evening of Aug. 2 with one of the people that were in the car when he died two days later. When he came home the next day, Datta said, there were bruises on his shoulders. “He was visibly shaken up and visibly afraid,” Datta said. Singh, a native of Fairfax County, was a member of a large Northern Virginian Sikh family originating in India. Close to 300 people attended his funeral, which was held on a Wednesday, and over 1,000 people attended religious services this weekend. According to Datta, the mood in the local Sikh community is “very tense” because of actions taken by Arlington Police immediately following Singh’s death. Datta said that many in the Sikh community feel that police were too reluctant to label Singh’s death suspicious, despite injuries on Singh’s body that, according to Datta, indicate that foul play was involved. He also said that many Sikhs were skeptical as to why police prohibited Singh’s parents from viewing his body until five days after his death. “What we’re trying to do is calm down the community,” Datta said. “It’s going to take time and patience.” Datta also said that “The change in direction of the county police from [calling it an] accident to [a] suspicious death has alleviated some concerns.” [http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/] Arlington Connection
Death Raises Questions
A recent initiative by the Department of Homeland Security would expand communication between its agencies and Arab, South Asian and Muslim youth in America. A conference on the issue, called “Roundtable on Security and Liberty: Perspectives of Young Leaders Post 9-11,” is being hailed by participants as a positive first step in repairing years of mutual mistrust.
“We’re dealing with profiling within our communities, and this provides us with a voice to change these problems,” said Rajbir Singh Datta, 25, of the Sikh American Legal Defence & Education Fund (SALDEF) of Washington, D.C., who participated in the conference. “When you’re a high school or college student, you are always dealing with these problems, but not sure how to solve them.” Datta, who lives in Washington, was one of 30 or so young leaders from a wide range of backgrounds who met with several government and law enforcement agencies at the conference, held at George Washington University in Washington in late July. “The youth want — and got access to — government people,” Datta said. Panel discussions ranged from “The State of Arab, Muslim, South Asian, Sikh, and Middle Eastern American Young People Today,” to how to get a job with the federal government. Datta said the best part of the conference was the frank discussions that took place between government officials — including Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff — and participants. “These are youth leaders within communities that are not already integrated with organizations that have a national voice,” Datta said. “You got an un-political response to questions from the government such as ‘How are we doing?’ ‘You’re doing horrible’; they knew they’d get a straight answer.” Datta’s group conducts educational outreach and sensitivity training about Sikhs — a group of non-Muslim South Asians that suffered intense post-Sept. 11 backlash as visible targets because of their traditional turbans. He said there are many positive steps the government has taken to improve community relations, but young people don’t seem to be aware of them. Hesham Mahmoud, of the New Jersey chapter of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, said his group regularly meets with law enforcement and government officials to try to improve relations. “We try to do as much as we can on the local level,” he said. “We meet to communicate our concerns when specific issues occur, and to keep lines of communication open.” Mahmoud said such relationships can benefit both groups — law enforcement feels they can build trust in more insular communities, and members of those communities feel their concerns are being heard. “It’s more a two-way communication,” Mahmoud said. “We always make it clear we are not spies in the community, but if we see something in the community of concern, we’ll definitely enforce the law.” Brett Hovington, chief of community relations for the FBI in Washington, one of the agencies that participated in the recent youth roundtable, said the agency is paying more attention to young people, especially in light of increasing radicalism among young immigrant groups throughout Europe. “For the FBI, it was an overall change in our mission, where we started to realize the importance of having a better understanding of the demographics in this country as they started to change,” Hovington said in a telephone interview from Washington Friday. “The community definitely wanted more communication with government, and at the FBI, we realized we had to make inroads into those communities — it was on both fronts.” Shaarik Zafar, of the Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which organized the conference, said it was refreshing to hear new perspectives on what it’s like to grow up as a Muslim, Arab-American or South Asian in a post-Sept. 11 world. “It was a very frank and constructive conversation with young people about the issues they face,” he said. “And we look forward to continuing the discussion.” Reach Samantha Henry at 973-569-7172 or henrys@northjersey.com [http://www.northjersey.com/]
Secretary Chertoff Engages with Arab, Muslim and Sikh American Youth Leaders Washington D.C. – August 2, 2007: Last week, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) participated in a roundtable discussion, Security and Liberty: Perspective of Young Leaders Post-9/11, hosted by the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute. The roundtable presented an opportunity for thirty Arab, Muslim, South Asian, and Sikh American youth leaders to interface and engage with high level government officials, policy experts, and national community leaders including DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. They primarily discussed issues of civil rights and how they relate to homeland security. “The roundtable presented us with an opportunity to explain the effects government security policies and initiatives have on our respective communities,” said SALDEF Legal Fellow Nitoj Singh. SALDEF Associate Director Rajbir Singh Datta served on a series of panels, highlighting both the challenges the Sikh American community has faced since 9/11 and the increased opportunities for positive community-government relationships. “The two-day roundtable was another step in creating a lasting dialogue between Arab, Muslim, and Sikh American youth and federal policymakers so that we may work together to jointly face the challenges of protecting the nation and its citizen’s civil rights,” said Mr. Datta. “The event highlighted the importance of engaging young leaders in the discussion and the contributions they can make.” SALDEF thanks DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, Daniel Sutherland, Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the DHS, and Frank J. Cilluffo, Associate Vice President for Homeland Security at The George Washington University, for organizing and hosting the July 24-25 roundtable at the George Washington University School of Law.