UK Sikhs defend right to carry sacred dagger after student murder backlash

Britain’s Sikh community has rejected calls to strip them of the rights to carry a ceremonial knife – known as the kirpan – as outrage snowballs over the murder of an 18-year-old student by a Sikh man.Vickrum Singh Digwa, 23, was handed a life sentence by a judge on Tuesday for stabbing to death Henry Nowak, an accountancy student, in Southampton in December 2025.The murder case has reopened a debate over race, religion and identity in the UK.Far-right figureheads, populist political leaders and even tech billionaire Elon Musk have joined a chorus alleging “two-tier” policing exists to protect ethnic minorities at the expense of the UK’s white majority population and called for the public wearing of the kirpan to be banned, in a country where carrying a weapon is illegal.Body camera footage released by police after Nowak’s stabbing shows him being handcuffed by officers despite telling them he has been stabbed and saying “I can’t breathe’’.In the footage, Digwa claims to the officers that he is a victim of a racial attack, and Nowak has ripped off his turban.