Sikh boy arrested in Texas for joking about bomb

New Delhi: A 12-year-old Sikh boy was arrested and kept behind the bars for three days in Texas after he joked that he had a bomb stowed in his backpack, police said on Friday.

Armaan Singh Sarai made a joke to the other students that he had a bomb in his backpack and threatened to blow the school building with it. School authorities called up the police.

A police official said that after receiving the phone call, they reached school and evacuated the building. The boy admitted to having made the remarks, but he said that he was joking. After 45 minutes of search, it was established that it was a joke. Police still arrested him and kept for three days.

However, Police defended itself by saying that they had transferred the boy to the juvenile facility center where he was kept.

Sarai's older brother Aksh Singh wrote a letter to the Principle asking why only the Indian boy was arrested even though other students were also making the joke.

School spokesperson defended and said that such claims and threats cannot be ignored easily and it wasn't unreasonable to call the police.

Sarai also had a heart condition, he has had three heart surgeries. Police said that the boy did not tell about his heart problem.

Some weeks ago a teenager named Ahmed Mohamed was arrested when staff mistakenly thought his homemade clock to be a bomb.

Sarai's cousin Ginee Haer posted on the Facebook about his brother, her post was shared by hundreds of people.

Two weeks ago a Sikh Gurudwara was vandalized with hateful remarks against the ISIS. Before that, a Sikh man was beaten and called Osama Bin Laden last September.

The fear of terrorists and that too from a specific community is so much into the mind of the Americans that they see everyone with doubt which is nothing short of racism.

Sarai's parents were not even informed, they called the police thinking that their child has gone missing only to know that he has been arrested. Police said that they tried to inform, but the contact numbers were wrong.

A boy who is not even in his teenage was thought to be a terrorist. Such incidents in one's life change the way of thinking towards the world.

The school and the police had all the rights to act on the threat but why the boy was kept for three days when inside the 45 minutes it was established that it was just a joke?

This incident is only another reminder of the fears and ignorance prevailing among the Americans.