Edmonton gurdwara targeted with threatening phone calls, prank deliveries

By CBC News | CANADA |

Leaders at the Singh Sabha Gurdwara in the Mill Woods area of southeast Edmonton are speaking out about months of targeted harassment.

Since March, the gurdwara — where thousands of Sikh Edmontonians worship — has received daily multiple threatening phone calls. Voices on the other end hurled racial slurs and espoused anti-Sikh sentiment.

There has also been calls from local businesses expecting payments for estimates and services, as well as deliveries of meat products, that no one in the gurdwara ever ordered.

“This is where we grew up. This is a place that we were born into. We attended every Sunday or every day. And just seeing the people that we grew up with, being so affected by this, it honestly is heartbreaking,” said Gurpreet Kaur, a spokesperson for Sangat Youth, a group that amplifies Sikh voices and provides support and resources for the community.

Last May, a large delivery of meat pizzas and chicken wings showed up at the gurdwara. No one there had ordered it. In fact, meat isn’t allowed on the premises and there are even signs outside saying so.

Community leaders decided it was time to call the Edmonton police service’s Hate Crimes and Violent Extremism Unit.

Sikh Edmontonians are not the only ones who are increasingly the target of hate-motivated incidents in the Edmonton area. There have also been a string of attacks on Muslim women that drew a crowd of hundreds out last weekend demanding action to protect them.

Read the full story, entitled ‘Edmonton Sikh temple targeted with threatening phone calls, prank deliveries’ (CBC News, 1 July 2021), here.

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