Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday urged the Centre to take up the issue of security of Sikhs in the United States with President Donald Trump. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told Singh that she had directed Indian Ambassador in the US Navtej Sharma to update Singh on the issues relating to the safety of Indians in America.

“Indians, Sikhs in US are not feeling safe,” he said on Twitter, while requesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Swaraj to take up the issue with the Donald Trump administration. In another tweet, Singh shared a report about a US Sikh who was allegedly called “Osama” in a racist incident at the New York University. “Shocked as another Sikh abused in the US, no place for such intolerance in a democracy,” Singh wrote.

Singh said there was a need to sensitise the people of US on the cultural identity of Sikhs. “With many of the racist attacks traced to mistaken identity, as a result of Sikhs being taken to be Muslim fundamentalists, it is important that awareness about Sikh identity be created among the Americans by the Trump government,” he told Hindustan Times.

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There have been a number of hate crimes against Indians in the United States over the past year. On June 4, a 26-year-old man from Telangana was shot at by unidentified person in California and was said to be in a “critical condition”. On February 22, Indian techie Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed when a US Navy veteran opened fire at him and his friend at a pub in Kansas while yelling “get out of my country”. In March this year, Sikh-US citizen Deep Rai was shot in the arm by a white man who allegedly shouted at Rao “go back to your own country” before attacking him.

Harnish Patel, a 43-year-old Indian-origin store owner, was found dead of gunshot wounds in the front yard of his home in South Carolina, in early March. On April 24, 56-year-old Khandu Patel was shot dead in crossfire outside a motel in Tennessee.