By Harmeet Shah Singh | Opinion |
Henry Nowak died in Southampton last December. He was eighteen. A Sikh man named Vickrum Digwa stabbed him five times. Digwa was convicted of murder in May. He got life, with a minimum of twenty-one years.
What came after was extraordinary. Crowds gathered, Nigel Farage called it proof of a two-tier Britain, and Tommy Robinson turned up with cameras.
Now meet Kirandeep Kaur. She was twenty-four, a mother of a three-month-old baby. A man broke into her home in Hayes, west London, on a July morning, having already stabbed a stranger outside. He kicked in her door and killed her as her husband lay beside her.
Her family in India’s Punjab had reportedly sold land and taken loans to send her to England for her studies. She finished her degree and found work. Her parents now want her body brought home for a proper cremation.
Kirandeep Kaur’s case sits in headlines built from police statements. Man charged. Court hears. Investigation continues. No crowds have gathered at Westminster. No marches have taken place in London.
According to news reports, her family believes she was targeted for who she was. The motive, though, hasn’t been officially confirmed. The accused’s own background also remains largely unreported.
Regardless of the outcome of this case, British Sikh organisations have lobbied MPs directly, citing a sharp rise in anti-Sikh hate incidents and pressing the lawmakers to act.
She had a husband. She had a baby who will grow up asking questions nobody has answered. She had a name: Kirandeep Kaur.
Far-right figures turned Henry Nowak’s murder in Southampton into a rallying cry against a “two-tier Britain”. Hayes became a filler item.
Courts in Britain guard against prejudicing a jury before a trial ends. That caution applied to Digwa’s case too, before conviction. Caution explains careful wording. It cannot explain why some victims and perpetrators get sustained national attention, and others don’t.
A young white teen killed by a Sikh became a national symbol the moment the verdict came in. A young Sikh woman killed inside her own bed became a few lines in a briefing.
Kirandeep Kaur’s name deserves the same scrutiny and the same national reckoning that Henry Nowak’s murder received.
Britain marched for one victim the moment justice was delivered. It can at least learn her name before the trial even begins.
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Harmeet Shah Singh is a career journalist currently serving as Communications and Advocacy Director at UNITED SIKHS (UK), a charity registered in England and Wales. The article was first shared here.
* This is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.
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