Bathinda: Faith and civil rights leaders from Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Christian communities, along with Palestinian-American activists, came together in Mesa, Arizona, on Tuesday evening to remember the first victim of a hate crime in the US after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.Four days after the terror strikes that killed 2,996 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania, Sikh-American gas station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot dead in Mesa on September 15, 2001. Twenty-five years on, his family and community leaders gathered at the same gas station where the 52-year-old Indian immigrant was killed, remembering his life and the hate crimes that followed the attacks.His brother Rana Singh Sodhi recalled a phone conversation he had nearly a decade ago with Frank Silva Roque, who was convicted of killing Balbir. Roque had apologised, sought forgiveness and expressed a wish to meet Rana after his release. “I told him that we have already forgiven him. When he died in prison at the age of 62 in 2022, we hope he might have met Balbir, wherever he might be,” Rana said.Balbir’s widow and family attended the remembrance, along with grandchildren born after his death. They recalled stories about him, particularly those shared by their grandmother.Civil rights activist, filmmaker and author Valarie Kaur, whose Revolutionary Love Project organised the memorial with the Sodhi family, said it also sought to remember others who became victims of hate crimes after 9/11. “Revolutionary love is the choice to see no stranger, to leave no one outside our circle of care even to risk for each other,” Kaur said.Faith and civil rights leaders from Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Christian communities, along with Palestinian-American activists, also addressed the gathering.Speakers included Aasees Kaur of Sikh Coalition, Deepa Iyer of Building Movement Project, Kiran Kaur Gill of Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Zahra Billoo of Council on American-Islamic Relations, Rami Nashashibi of Inner-City Muslim Action Network, Sapna Gupta of Hindus for Human Rights, Rev Hierald E Osorto, Rabbi Sharon Brous of IKAR and Rev Michael-Ray Mathews of Prophetic Foundry.
