SINGH SABHA OF NEW YORK Inc.

March 10, 2002 New York Times

In Aftermath of Temple Fire, Sikhs Pray, and Share Sorrow

By SUSAN SAULNY

f today were a normal Sunday at the Sikh gurdwara in the Richmond Hill section of Queens, as many as 4,000 worshipers would sing prayers, meditate and share a meal at the temple, the oldest and largest Sikh gathering place in the region.

The devout will no doubt come to the temple today, but mostly to mourn the gurdwara's charred, collapsing remains, as they have since a fire destroyed most of the complex early Friday morning.

But they will also come to give thanks. Sikh officials said that about 25 or 30 people, many of them priests visiting from India, were sleeping in the temple complex when the fire started. Everyone escaped, but six were taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. Yesterday, one priest, Harvinder Singh Rattan, a 37- year-old visitor from New Delhi, remained in critical condition, officials said. The others were either in stable condition or had been treated and released.

"All of our hearts were here because this was like home base," said Harpreet Singh Toor, chairman of the Sikh Cultural Society of Richmond Hill, which owns the temple. "This is devastating because if you look at it, you see the whole thing is gone."

Members of the temple said there were about 20 gurdwaras and about 300,000 Sikhs in the metropolitan area, but that when the temple was founded, in 1972, there were fewer than 100 Sikh families in all of New York City.

They joined together and, tired of squeezing into each other's homes for prayers, bought a 19th-century church on 118th Street in Richmond Hill. They added the golden dome that is characteristic of Sikh temples, and connected the church to an existing home to form a community center, complete with a basement dining hall and living quarters for visitors.

Yesterday afternoon, beams of sunlight shown through the fallen parts of the roof and second floor, exposing cubbyholes of burnt shoes near the street-level entrance (Sikhs worship in bare feet).

Mr. Toor and members of the temple waited anxiously to enter the building yesterday in hope of saving copies of their holy book, the Guru Grandh Shaib, and other sacred objects. But they were held back by firefighters who feared that the temple was unsafe.

Hundreds of Sikh men, women and children gathered in nearby streets and houses, where doors were open for prayer, vegetarian dishes and moral support.

Kuldeep Singh, a 31-year-old visiting priest from India, was walking around the temple with his left arm in a sling. He fractured the arm and a rib jumping out of a second-floor window to escape the fire after being unable to get to a stairwell.

"The smoke was black and bitter," he said. "We couldn't see anything. We rushed back into our room, closed the door and jumped."

Amarjot Singh, 33, a priest visiting from northern California, made it to the front entrance. "I closed my eyes, held my breath and ran," he said.

The Fire Department was still investigating the cause of the blaze yesterday. Among many Sikhs on the street, the fire seemed suspicious, but investigators had found no evidence to suggest it was anything but accidental.

Sikh men, who wear beards and turbans, have been mistaken since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks for followers of the Taliban. Pritpal Singh, a leading member of the temple, said that since the attacks he had handed out leaflets stressing Sikh beliefs in freedom and equality.

"We are a 500-year-old religion founded to abolish the caste system and the denigration of women," he said. "But we have faced a lot of discrimination lately. A number of people have told me, `go back home' since Sept. 11. I say my home is Queens."

He continued: "We just want to find out what really happened. We pray to God it wasn't malicious, but if it was, we want to know."

HOLY HORROR IN QUEENS

By MARIA ALVAREZ and PHILIP MESSING

March 9, 2002 -- The city's oldest Sikh temple - in Richmond Hill, Queens - burned to the ground yesterday, leaving hundreds of worshipers devastated at their loss and religious leaders trying to quash rumors the fire was arson.

The three-alarm fire at the Gurdwara Sikh Cultural Society temple forced seven people to jump out of the building's windows early yesterday morning. It took 138 firefighters to get the blaze under control.

Three people were injured, and one is in critical condition at Jamaica Hospital.

Mayor Bloomberg visited the temple to offer the city's support and condolences. He said fire officials do not believe the blaze was intentionally set or was a bias crime.

"There is no reason to believe there is anything suspicious," said Bloomberg. He added that there had been reports of a gas leak in the area.

"There is no indication that this was intentional," added Fire Assistant Capt. Joe Callan. "The fire started in the wooden portion of the building in the lower floor."

Several Sikhs were victims of hate crimes during the post-Sept. 11 backlash, when they were mistaken for Muslims.

"People were beaten with bats on this road because they think we are Muslims," said Swaranjit Singh of the Sikhism Promotions Mission.

Sikh leaders yesterday tried to quell fears and rumors that the fire was a bias crime.

Giani Hardev Singh, the temple's priest, said, "We have no idea how the fire started. There was smoke and fire everywhere. We almost suffocated."

One Fire Department source told The Post the fire was probably started by accident.

Several hundred people held a vigil yesterday at the temple, which was opened in 1972, and remembered it as a refuge for newly arrived Sikhs to the United States from India.

"We are very emotionally attached to the temple," said Mahinder Singh of Queens. "People come here when they need a job or need a place to live. There is no end to the services they offer."

The daily meals and services provided by the temple will be available at a nearby temple on 115th Street. Religious leaders vowed yesterday to rebuild.

Sikh Cultural Society Temple Richmond Hill On Fire- NEWSDAY Coverage
A Congregation Mourns
Sikhs grieve for injured priest, loss of center in blaze

By Lola Alapo
STAFF WRITER, Staff writer Rocco Parascandola contributed to this story.

March 10, 2002

With tears in his eyes, a relative of a Sikh priest critically injured in Friday's fire that devastated the Sikh Cultural Society said the injured man's father was coming to the United States from India, only to face a dreadful decision.

"The doctors asked me if they should remove the life support and I said no," said Harbhajan Singh, 50, as he clutched a bouquet of yellow, purple, pink and white carnations. "I'm waiting for his father."

Harvindar Singh, 37, who was visiting the United States from India and was one of five Sikhs injured in the blaze, remained in critical condition yesterday at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. Friends said Friday that the smoke inhalation he suffered aggravated an existing heart condition.

Of the others injured, Amar Rhandhawr and Gajjan Singh remained in stable condition at the hospital. Gurhachan Singh and Harbhajan Singh, no relation to the relative of the critically injured man, were treated and released Friday night.

Fire Department investigators had not pinpointed the fire's cause late yesterday.

Sarabjit Singh, 32, who attends the temple, said the building just had a fire inspection two weeks ago, and a new alarm system and smoke detectors were installed. Everything worked fine, he said.

"People are very much confused as to what happened," Singh said. "It's really surprising and painful."

The community surrounding the Richmond Hill temple, the nation's oldest Sikh house of worship, remained somber yesterday. Onlookers gazed at the gutted remains of the temple and members gathered to pray and comfort each other in and around the 118th Street home of Ravinder Kaur, 42, directly across the street.

"It is our duty to help," said Kaur, who had volunteered her house.

The general secretary of the temple, Swinder Singh Josan, said that for now the congregation will meet in the houses of different members until the back of the property, a vacant plot, can be converted into a temporary temple within two to three days. They hope to construct it to resemble a hall, using tents and covering the ground with carpets so people can sit comfortably, he said.

"We are going to demolish the temple after the Fire Department completes their investigation," Josan said. "It's not worth keeping because it's not safe."

More than 2,500 people worshipped at the temple on weekends and an estimated 10,000 on holidays.

Singh also said that other Sikh congregations around the country and in Canada were asking how they could help.

The congregation hopes to know soon where to tell people to send donations, Josan said.

A couple from Woodside who brought flowers to the neighborhood said they just wanted to show their sympathy and support for the community.

"After Sept. 11, so much has happened to the Sikh community in terms of mistaken identity," said Michael Kassner, 33, a law student who said he did a research project on Sikhs, referring to Sikhs who, because of their appearance, were confused with the radical Islamists who carried out the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. "And to have this happen is a terrible thing."

Charangit Singh, 54, sat on the stoop outside the Kaur's home, mournfully rocking back and forth.

"Everybody is crying," he said in a broken voice. He was a priest of the temple from 1984 until 1991.

"I'm not feeling good. I haven't eaten in two days."

Staff writer Rocco Parascandola contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.

Sikhism Growing Despite Obstacles

By Ron Howell
STAFF WRITER; Staff writer Indrani Sen contributed to this story.

March 9, 2002

In the 30 years of its existence, the Sikh Cultural Center of Richmond Hill went from being a local house of prayer to an internationally known center where the life and death issues of India were passionately discussed, a Sikh scholar said.

"It became in the 1980s really the center of Sikh political activity in this country and Europe," said Gurinder Singh Mann, Kapany Professor of Sikh Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

"People would come from England and other European countries and the West Coast and meet there. It played a significant role in political activities. People would come and discuss what needs to be done."

Mann said passions were high because as many as 30,000 people were killed in the Punjab region of India between 1982 and 1992, where Sikhs were demanding independence.

The effort to achieve independence failed, but members of the growing Sikh community in New York began to settle into a routine in their adopted country.

The routine was painfully disrupted Friday morning when the temple was engulfed in flames, destroying volumes of religious texts and injuring Sikh scholars who were staying there.

They kept the old traditions, wearing turbans and gathering on Fridays and Sundays to pray and sing hymns at their gurudwaras, or temples.

They took delight in a festival they held every April, marching through the streets of Manhattan to show their culture off to fellow New Yorkers.

The parade will go on as scheduled this year - on April 20 - but now it will be an occasion of sadness, local Sikhs said.

"I am thinking now of years ago when we started this," said Dr. Rajinder Singh Uppal, who has a medical practice in Ridgewood and lives near Oyster Bay on Long Island.

"In the beginning we only had a few people in our gathering," he added, referring to the Richmond Hill temple in its early years when it was the first gurudwara in the region.

But Sikhs continued coming to New York, and they organized other gurudwaras. Estimates on the number of Sikhs in the metropolitan area range from 50,000 to 150,000, and they worship now at 15 to 20 gurudwaras, said Mohinder Singh Taneja, a Westbury resident and general secretary of the Sikh Organization of New York.

There are anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 living in the United States, with the largest concentration in central California, according to Sikhs who spoke with Newsday.

Sikhs are monotheists who stress hard work and charity. In New York in recent months, they have experienced their share of pain. After Sept. 11, one member of the Richmond Hill center was seriously assaulted by a group of toughs who mistook him for a Muslim.

For many, hopes and dreams were symbolically contained in the holy books of the Richmond Hill temple.

One Punjabi phrase in particular is appropriate in this time of sorrow, Uppal said. The words, which are sung, are addressed to God.

Tera bhana mitha lagae.

"Whatever your wishes are, we will accept them."

Staff writer Indrani Sen contributed to this story.

THE SIKH CULTURAL SOCIETY

Attendance; 700-800 worshipers daily; 2,500-3,000 on weekends

Founded: 1972

Programs: Temple, educational wing, community kitchen, living quarters for visitors, 15,000-volume library

SIKHISM

Founded: 15th century, in Punjab state of India

Philosophy: Worship one god, work hard, serve the community

Customs: Sikhs take the surname Singh to signify the oneness of human beings. Men do not cut their hair or beards, and they cover their heads with turbans.

Metro-area followers: 50,000-150,000

Followers nationwide: 250,000-500,000

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.

Flames Engulf Temple
Sikh center destroyed in 3-alarm blaze; cause still mystery

By Merle English
Staff Writer

March 9, 2002

The oldest Sikh temple in North America and center of the 150,000-member Sikh community in the tri-state area was destroyed in a Richmond Hill fire early Friday morning.

Flames gutted the two buildings housing the Sikh Cultural Society at 95-30 118th St.

Scores of Sikh-Americans gathered around police barricades in the community of tidy, two-story homes to mourn the loss of their beloved temple, which housed priests and visitors and provided free food for thousands daily.

More than 2,500 worshiped there on weekends and 10,000 on holidays.

"The community is sad,” Mohan Sahansra Singh of Westbury said. "We all feel as if it's our own home that's burned down.”

"Everything is gone,” Swinder Singh, the temple's general secretary, said.

An alarm phoned in at 12:31 a.m. quickly went to three alarms as fire engulfed a two-story wood frame structure where officials believe the fire started.

Eyewitnesses said flames shot into the sky from the tower of an adjoining brick building, a former Methodist Church built in 1893 at 118th Street and 97th Avenue that housed the temple's sanctuary.

The fire was brought under control at 1:16 a.m.

About a dozen people who were inside the buildings were able to flee.

A Sikh priest visiting from New Delhi, Havinder Rattan Singh, 37, suffered a heart attack and was admitted to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in critical condition. He remained critical Friday night. Smoke inhalation worsened a pre-existing heart condition, temple officials said.

Six other people, including two firefighters, suffered minor injuries.

Fire Department officials were investigating reports from neighbors that they smelled gas in the area Thursday.

Fire Chief Joseph Callen said there was no indication if the fire was intentional or if it was caused by a gas leak. A basement kitchen was being investigated. "We're not counting anything out,” he said.

Michael Robinson, a Mount Sinai Hospital employee whose home faces the temple's backyard, said he smelled smoke and saw flames shoot "about 50 feet in the air.”

"It seemed like something was fueling the fire. My worry was this was hate-inspired,” Robinson said.

Asked if bias was involved, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, who visited the scene with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said it was "much too early for us to speculate.” Several members of the Sikh community were assaulted after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks.

Harpreet Singh Toor, chairman of the temple's board of trustees, said, "There is no reason to suspect it is a bias case.”

Three high school students who took classes at the temple comforted each other as they watched firefighters hosing down the wooden structure.

"My friends are crying. This was kind of our first home. This was our life,” said Parbinder Kaur, 16, who lives in the neighborhood.

"Thank God nothing happened to our holy book,” said her friend, Punit Kaur. (Sikh women, like Sikh men, have the same last name.)

A police officer was able to save the temple's Holy Book. It was kept in a special encasement near the center of the sanctuary, a large room where congregants sit on the carpet.

Mayor Bloomberg said he came "to make sure the Sikh community can take care of their flock ... that people have a place to go to sleep and eat.”

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall also visited the site and said she was establishing a task force to assist the community.

Asked the extent of the loss of the temple, which housed classrooms and a library with 15,000 books, Toor said, "You cannot put a money value on the loss. If you're talking about the building, a couple of million dollars.” The complex was insured.

He said the Sikh community would pool their resources and rebuild it "to bring it back bigger and stronger than it was.”

A neighbor opened his home for a morning service Friday. About a hundred people attended an evening service held on 97th Avenue, which was closed to traffic between 117th and 118th streets.

Once firefighters declare the area safe, he said, services will be held temporarily in tents on an empty lot behind the temple where an extension was to be built.

The annual Sikh Day parade scheduled for April 20 in Manhattan will be held as planned.

Staff writer William Murphy contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.

Fire in Sikh temple injures six, two seriously

By RICK BERSNAK JR.
Associated Press Writer

March 8, 2002, 5:21 PM EST

NEW YORK -- A temple that serves as a major religious and educational center for Sikhs in the metropolitan area and beyond was destroyed by fire early Friday. Six visiting preachers from India were injured, two critically.

"It feels like taking your heart out," said Harpreet Singh Toor, chairman of the Sikh Cultural Society in Richmond Hill, Queens. "It's just a shell."

City officials said the fire, which started shortly after 12:30 a.m., may have been caused by a gas leak, and discounted questions that it could be a bias incident.

The fire collapsed the roof on the sprawling half-block structure, blew out windows and gutted the inside.

Toor said the cultural society houses the temple, an educational wing, a kitchen and living quarters for up to 50 people _ mainly visiting preachers, in an area of Queens with a large Indian population.

Its library, containing about 15,000 books, was destroyed, Toor said. About 16 holy books were salvaged before the fire tore through the building, which consists of a basement and two stories.

Toor said a prayer service would be held at 6:30 p.m. Friday, in an area to the rear of the burned-out temple _ or Gurdwara.

Darbara Singh, 48, who worshipped regularly at the temple in a neighborhood of neat, mostly two-family homes, said, "This is very bad for us. I feel very sorry. It's a very, very bad tragedy."

All the injured were taken to Jamaica Hospital. Two men _ ages 39 and 37 _ were in critical condition; two were in stable condition, and two were treated and released, said Mike Hinck, a hospital spokesman. Toor said all six were preachers, or priests, visiting from India.

He said about 28 to 30 people, all visiting preachers, were inside the building when the fire erupted. The hot spots in the basement were still burning at midday.

At an afternoon news conference near the burned-out building, Assistant Fire Chief Joseph Callan said, "We're now checking the gas main under the ground to see if there was a problem."

Several people reported a smell of gas coming from the basement kitchen before the fire erupted, he said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who joined Callan, said, "The chief told me there's no reason to believe there's anything suspicious. ... Now we have to make sure that the Sikh community can go about taking care of their flock."

Toor described the building, on 118th Street near Lefferts Boulevard, as "the major center in Western society for Sikhs." It regularly serves Sikhs from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Daily, 700 to 800 worshippers visit the temple, starting at 4 a.m. until around 10 p.m., and 2,500 to 3,000 on weekends. On major religious holidays, as many as 10,000 come, he said.

The society will temporarily use a two-story house it owns next door for worship "where people can come in for a short time and walk out," said Toor. The house normally is used for resident preachers and as classrooms.

Balwinder Singh, president of the cultural society, said tents also will be set up for worship on an empty lot the society owns behind the temple.

"The whole community is feeling upset. When they come, they're crying," he said.

Toor said Sikhs also can worship at temples in nearby Flushing, Bellerose, Queens Village and Woodside.

There are about 150,000 Sikhs in the New York metropolitan area, and about half a million in the United States. There are 20 million worldwide, according to the Sikh Web site.

The Sikh religion was founded by Guru Nanak in the Punjab region of India. Devotees believe strongly in equality, are against the caste system and run community kitchens that feed the hungry _ a big feature of the Sikh Cultural Society.

Men take the last name Singh, literally meaning lion but as a surname meaning saint-soldier. Sikhs men do not cut their hair and conceal it under turbans.

Rajinder Singh, 33, a limousine driver who worshipped at the temple every Sunday, said, "This is God's house. I love this temple. This is my religious space."

He described the neighborhood as 80 percent Sikh, with some Hindus and Muslims living among them.

Radesh Babular, 28, a Hindu who lives across the street from the temple, described the neighborhood as one where "people are like family."

Khodeza Ulah, 45, a Muslim who lives on the same block, agreed. "The neighborhood is nice. We help each other in emergencies," she said.

Harbhag Singh, whose house is next door to the temple, said he woke up to the sounds of screams and fire sirens outside. He said he quickly got his wife and two children outside.

The children were scared,he said, "because they know it is God's house."

The 37-year-old temple was preparing for a major holiday on April 13 _ the founding of the Sikh religion _ called Vaisakhi when Sikhs were baptized as a whole community in 1699, making them "khalsa" or pure, Toor said.

"We are definitely going to rebuild," said Toor,

Thirty-three units and more than 130 firefighters battled the fire, which was brought under control at 4:16 a.m. Two firefighters suffered minor injuries.

Sikh Center Was Internationally Known

By Ron Howell
Staff Writer

March 8, 2002

In the 30 years of its existence, the Sikh Cultural Center of Richmond Hill went from being a local house of prayer to an internationally known center where the life and death issues of India were passionately discussed, a Sikh scholar said.

“It became in the 1980s really the center of Sikh political activity in this country and Europe," said Gurinder Singh Mann, Kapany Professor of Sikh Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

“People would come from England and other European countries and the west coast and meet there. It played a significant role in political activities. People would come and discuss what needs to be done.”

Singh Mann said passions were high because as many as 30,000 people were killed in the Punjab region of India between 1982 and 1992, where Sikhs were demanding independence.

The effort to achieve independence failed, but members of the growing Sikh community in New York began to settle into a routine of life in their adopted country.

They kept the old traditions, wearing turbans and gathering on Fridays and Sundays to pray and sing hymns at their gurudwaras, or temples.

They took delight in a festival they held every April, marching through the streets of Manhattan to show their culture off to their fellow New Yorkers.

The parade will go on as scheduled this year — on April 20 — but it will be an occasion of sadness, local Sikhs said.

“I am thinking now of years ago when we started this,” said Dr. Rajinder Singh Uppal, who has a medical practice in Ridgewood, Queens, and lives near Oyster Bay on Long Island.

“In the beginning we only had a few people in our gathering,” he added, referring to the Richard Hill temple in its early years when it was the first gurudwara in the region.

But Sikhs continued coming to New York and they organized other gurudwaras. Estimates on the number of Sikhs in the metropolitan area range from 50,000 to 150,000, and they worship now at 15 to 20 gurudwaras, said Mohinder Singh Taneja, a Westbury, Long Island, resident and General Secretary of Sikh Organization of New York.

There are anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 living in the United States, with the largest concentration in Central California.

For East Coast Sikhs, their hopes and dreams were symbolically contained in the holy books of the Richmond Hill temple.

Sikhs are monotheists who stress hard work and charity. In New York in recent months, they have experienced their share of pain.

After Sept. 11, one member of the Richmond Hill center was seriously assaulted by a group of toughs who mistook him for a Muslim.

Dr. Uppal said that Sikhs believe God is contained in the words of their holy books. One Punjabi phrase in particular struck him as appropriate in this time of sorrow. The words are addressed to God.

"Tera bhana mitha lagae ... Whatever your wishes are, we will accept them.”

Staff writer Indrani Sen contributed to this story.

Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.

Fire Destroys Sikh Temple in NY

By RICK BERSNAK JR.
Associated Press Writer

March 8, 2002, 5:49 PM EST

NEW YORK -- Fire destroyed the city's most prominent Sikh temple Friday, injuring six visiting preachers from India, two of them critically.

The fire began just after midnight and may have been caused by a gas leak, fire officials said.

"The chief told me there's no reason to believe there's anything suspicious," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "Now we have to make sure that the Sikh community can go about taking care of their flock."

Two men, ages 39 and 37, were in critical condition, Jamaica Hospital spokesman Mike Hinck said.

The temple serves many of the 150,000 Sikhs live in the New York metropolitan area drawing more than 2,500 worshippers on weekends and 10,000 during holidays.

Its cultural center includes living quarters for up to 50 people, many of them visiting preachers. About 30 were inside when the fire began.

The fire collapsed the roof of the sprawling half-block structure, blew out windows and gutted the inside. The library, containing about 15,000 books, was destroyed. Just 16 holy books were salvaged.

"It feels like taking your heart out. It's just a shell," said Harpreet Singh Toor, chairman of the Sikh Cultural Society at the temple in Richmond Hill, a Queens neighborhood with a large Indian population.

He said a prayer service would be held Friday evening in an area to the rear of the burned-out temple.

The society was preparing for a major holiday on April 13 called Vaisakhi, when Sikhs in 1699 were baptized as a whole community, making them "khalsa" or pure, Toor said.

He said the temple would be rebuilt. In the interim, a two-story house next door will be used for worship. He said Sikhs can also worship at temples in several nearby communities.

Harbhag Singh, who lives next door to the temple, said he woke up to the sounds of screams and fire sirens and quickly moved his wife and two children. The youngsters were frightened, he said, "because they know it is God's house."

Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

Introduction

OUR GURUS

Our Present Guru Sahib

Q & A about S.G.G.S

Nanakshahi Calendar

Sikh Day Parades

Sikh Code of Conduct

Divine Truth Book

Some Articles

Some Assorted Articles

Gurbani Dictionary

Sikh Awareness Project

Great Sikh Women

Great Sikh Men

Thoughtful Contributions

Quizzes for Kids

Note-Worthy Visitors

Safety Saves Us