Sikh Man Removed From Bus After Being Falsely Accused of Discussing Bombs

A Sikh man who was removed from a greyhound bus after a passenger mistook him speaking Punjabi for Arabic is asking authorities to press charges against the passenger who had accused him of making a bomb threat.
Sikh Man Removed From Bus After Being Falsely Accused of Discussing Bombs
Jonathan Zhou
Updated:

“Soon after the bus stopped, I received a phone call from a family member, but the two African American passengers physically prevented me from answering my phone,” Singh wrote. “I tried to call an English-speaking family member to help me communicate with them, but the men prevented me from using my phone.”

Singh said that he was detained for 30 hours before speaking to the FBI through a Punjabi interpreter, after which he was released. 

“I was unfairly accused of being a terrorist and treated as a threat. I was made to take a mug shot without my religious turban, and this picture was circulated in the media, causing me deep humiliation and angst,” Singh wrote. 

Singh said that some of the passengers, including the ones who placed him under citizen’s arrest, took pictures and recorded videos of him, and that he was called a “bitch.” 

Potter county attorney Scott Brumley said that he had received a copy of the complaint from the Sikh coalition, according to local media reports, but that it was difficult to prosecute these cases because of the difficulty of proving that someone knowingly filed a false police report. 

Jonathan Zhou
Jonathan Zhou
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Jonathan Zhou is a tech reporter who has written about drones, artificial intelligence, and space exploration.
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