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Gurdwara membership: Rights panel in Canada rejects complaint of non-Dalits

TORONTO: A human rights tribunal in Canada has dismissed a complaint by two Indian-origin men who were denied membership in a Sikh temple because of their social ranking.

Gurshinder Sahota and Sohan Shergill said they were discriminated against by the Shri Guru Ravidass Sabha temple in Vancouver, although they belong to a higher caste in social ranking than temple members do.

The 900 members of the temple belong to the Dalits.

Sahota and Shergill are from the Jat caste, which is traditionally a land-owning class in Punjab and now makes up much of Vancouver’s Sikh community.

The decision of the British Columbia Tribunal was hailed as an affirmation of the temple members’ right to gather as a “minority within a minority,” spokesman of the temple said.— PTI

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