Come mid-October, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is likely to acquiesce to more than two years of pushing by the Sikh-American community and United States lawmakers and finally create a special category for Sikh Americans in the agency's hate crime monitoring form.
US Senator Richard Durbin, who held a hearing last week on hate crimes and domestic extremism in the wake of the horrific massacre of Sikh worshippers at the Oak Creek, Wisconsin gurdwara last month, told
reddiff.com after the hearing, that he would be unrelenting in the pursuit of getting the FBI to create a special category to specifically list hate crimes against Sikh Americans.
"I made a promise and I intend to keep it, and I wish continue to push for this," he said.
Durbin added, "As you heard, the department of justice, said a decision will be taken in mid-October, and I expect it to be positive."
During the hearing, Durbin told a senior department of justice official Roy L Austin, Jr, deputy assistant attorney general, civil rights division -- who was testifying, that "a little later on this afternoon, Harpreet Singh Saini is going to testify here. He lost his mother at Oak Creek, and he is going to say, 'I came here today to ask the government to give my mother the dignity of being a statistic.'"
The lawmaker asked Austin, "Why don't have a special place here for identifying hate crimes against Sikh Americans?"
Austin explained that "the department of justice, has met regularly with Sikh Americans and other faiths. And, we have heard this concern and we are going to take action with respect to this concern."
He noted that "Deputy Attorney General Jim Cole has announced that the civil rights division and the community relations service, are going to bring today a broad array of religious groups to address exactly what kinds of statistics should be kept, and we plan to invite and have spoken to the Sikh community as well."
Austin said, "The FBI has a process that is gone through before determining how the form is changed, and the department of justice will play an active role with respect to that process to ensure that the form properly reflects those who are perpetrators, those who are victimised by hate crimes."
Durbin complained that "things move pretty slowly at the federal level and the request has been there for more than two years," and pressed Austin to "give me some kind of indication when the decision might be made."
The senior DOJ official in response, said, "There will be a meeting in mid-October, in which what the department of justice finds will be presented to an FBI committee. At that point, the decision of the department of justice will be known."
Durbin then said, "In light of the terrible incident at Oak Creek, Wisconsin, this would be a good thing for us to do as expeditiously as possible."
Later, when Saini appeared before the committee to provide his testimony, Durbin informed him that "I asked a question of the first panel, based upon your request that a category be added to this report form so that the Sikh Americans would have some collection of statistics and numbers."
"And, I think the response was positive," he told Saini, "and I promise you that I will follow up with them to make sure that it is considered on a timely basis."
Earlier in the day, Cole, speaking at the community relations