'Disappointed' Sikhs to take legal action against New Zealand club over turban ban

Wellington, Jun 16 (ANI): The Sikh community in New Zealand will take legal action against a south Auckland club decision to maintain a ban on wearing 'turbans' in its bar.

Auckland's Manurewa Cosmopolitan Club held a poll during its annual meeting on Sunday, in which about 75 percent members said that they wanted to maintain its policy forbidding the headwear.

The vote was held after Karnail Singh was barred from entering the club in November last year for not removing his turban..

Sikh Council secretary Verpal Singh said they would ask the Human Rights Review Tribunal to overturn Manurewa Cosmopolitan Club's decision to maintain its policy forbidding the wearing of headwear in the bar.

"It's the next step in mediation that was started with the Human Rights Commission and as the logical next step we are going to the Human Rights Review Tribunal," NZPA quoted Singh, as saying.

The Sikh community is disappointed at the club's decision. "At issue is not that we want to go there to the club but we don't want to be excluded," he said.

Further, the club has decided not to ban all Sikhs, and founding member of the Pukekohe Cosmopolitan Club Ganges Singh, who has been visiting the club since 1976, would still be allowed in with his turban.

"That's where the situation is so strange to us," NZ Herald quoted Verpal Singh, as saying. (ANI)