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| Bhai Jagmeet Singh with his wife and baby meeting Bhai Jagraj Singh and his 2 children. |
On 11th January 2017, Bhai Jagmeet Singh was stopped on the way to picking up his wife and baby from inside the terminal of Gatwick Airport. Staff had stopped him after been alerted that a man of his description had a knife.
Bhai Jagmeet Singh explained to the staff that he was a Sikh and he was within the law to wear the Kirpan. After a lengthy conversation it appeared that that senior staff of Gatwick Airport wear not familiar with who Sikhs are, and furthermore had been given no diversity training that included knowing about Sikhs.
It is quite shocking to know this, as there is a lot of focus on equality and diversity training in all fields of work.
Bhai Jagmeet Singh requested to speak to the Senior Supervisor, which he recorded the conversation with the permission of everyone involved. During the conversation, Bhai Sahib learnt that you can take a 3 inch Kirpan through security screening and on the plane if traveling via Gatwick, similar to Heathrow and Luton airports allowing 6cm sharps (2.36 inches) that allows Kirpan blades of that size.
Bhai Sahib has urged all the UK Sangat and all concerned individuals to email the management of Gatwick Airport to highlight your concerns and request they amend their official policies and correctly train all staff so incidents like this or worse do not happen in the future.
E-mail: customer.services@gatwickairport.com
Audio of the conversation below. From the audio we can say that handled the situation very well and represented Sikhs in a good light.
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