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NEW YORK (TIP): A twelve years old Sikh girl's hair was maliciously cut by another student at Public School 219 in Flushing, Queens. On June 9, Gurprit
Kaur discovered that another student had cut off a portion of her braided hair and discarded it. The perpetrator had a history of bullying Gurprit and her brother who wears a patka. School officials sadly
returned the cut portion of Gurprit's hair --- three to four inches in all --- in a napkin that Gurprit took home with her. Sadly, the perpetrator specifically harassed Gurprit because of her and her
brother, Talwinder's, Sikh articles of faith. The perpetrator made fun of Talwinder's joorha and patka, saying "Your brother has a ball on his head. I am going to rip it off and throw it at him." The
attack on Gurprit has come off only five days after Jagmohan Singh Premi, a Sikh student, was punched in the face when a student intentionally attempted to remove his patka (smaller turban) at Richmond Hill High
School, in Richmond Hill, Queens. Sikh children continue to suffer in New York City. This past April, the Sikh Coalition released a civil rights report that found that more than 60% of the over 400 New York
City Sikh public school students the Coalition surveyed suffered bias-based harassment or violence in city schools. More
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