Sacramento-area Sikh community condemns Sunday festival shooting at south county temple

Sacramento area Sikh leaders Monday condemned the shooting that wounded two men at a Sikh house of worship Sunday and marred what had been a weekend of joyous celebration.

Two men were critically wounded in the afternoon shooting at the Gurdwara Sacramento Sikh Society on the 7600 block of Bradshaw Road, in Sacramento County’s Vineyard area where thousands had gathered Sunday for the temple’s first Nagar Kirtan, a traditional neighborhood celebration and parade.

“There is no honor in causing harm to others including your own community,” said Bobbie Singh-Allen, Elk Grove mayor and a parishioner of Gurdwara Sacramento Sikh Society.

She was surrounded by parishioners and temple officials, at a Monday afternoon news conference on the gurdwara’s grounds. “We came to this country for a better life through the sacrifices of our parents and grandparents.,” she said. “This is not the dream they imagined for their youth.”

Two of the men were involved in a fistfight, the pair exchanging punches. A friend of one of the men shot a friend of the other combatant, Sacramento County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Amar Gandhi said.

‘Against our Sikh faith’

The men, all in their 20s, were not part of the parade, but knew each other, Singh-Allen said Monday. “These displays of violence go against our Sikh faith. It is unfortunate that they brought their issues to a place of worship where everyone should feel safe.”

The two men are expected to survive, Sacramento County Sheriff’s spokesman Amar Gandhi said. The suspected gunman, 21-year-old Karman Sandhu, was booked into Sacramento County Main Jail on suspicion of attempted murder charges and is being held without bail.

One of the men who was shot will be booked into Sacramento County custody once he is released from the hospital, sheriff’s officials said. Gandhi said the men were of East Indian descent, but did not know if they were of the Sikh faith.

Gandhi said another firearm was found Monday on the temple grounds and that investigators were reviewing hundreds of interviews from witnesses who had crowded the festival.

What brought them to the festival remained unclear Monday.

“People don’t usually come to a place of worship to start trouble,” Gandhi said. Private security firm NorCal Security was hired to patrolled the event, but did not search or wand for weapons at the temple site.

Singh-Allen and temple congregants repeatedly stressed that the Sunday shooting should not be a reflection on the greater Sikh community, saying that the gurdwara is and remains a safe place of worship.

“Bad things happen but that does not speak to the entire Sikh community,” Singh-Allen said. Sikhism “is a religion of peace. A few people do not speak for our community or our faith.”

Planned annual event

Organizers envisioned the Sikh Society’s first Sikh Parade as a replica of the traditional annual Sikh festival and parade in Yuba City, home to one the nation’s oldest Sikh communities. The festival draws tens of thousands of the faithful each year to agricultural Sutter County to celebrate faith and community.

“It was just a beautiful as that,” Varinder Singh, a parishioner and one of the festival’s organizers said Monday.

Sunday’s parade across nearly seven miles of south Sacramento County, was to be a capstone. Then shots rang out. No one else among the thousands of revelers was hurt.

The parade was halted briefly out of caution but soon resumed. Many of the revelers returned to the grounds for the evening’s services, a show, Singh-Allen said, of the community’s resilience.

Singh-Allen and others singled out Gandhi, the sheriff’s sergeant, who ensured the Sikh holy scripture, carried at the parade, was returned to the temple during an active crime scene.

The Sacramento Sikh Society said it is unbowed. It plans for the weekend festival to be an annual event. March 31, 2024, is already marked for next year’s festival.

“This is holy ground. This is a sanctuary. Everyone should feel safe and welcome here at the gurdwara, or any gurdwara,” Singh-Allen said. “This will not deter our community from coming together and openly celebrating our faith. We will work hard to make sure all future events will continue. We will not live in fear.”