April 19, 2021
Just days after Vaisakhi—the harvest festival that marks the start of the Sikh New Year—America’s Sikh community was left petrified by a bloody massacre.
Among the eight victims who died in the mass shooting at an Indianapolis FedEx Facility on April 15, four were Sikh.
“I have several family members who work at the particular facility and are traumatised,” community member Komal Chohan, whose 66-year-old grandmother Amarjeet Kaur Johal was among the victims, said in a Sikh Coalition press release. “My
nani (grandmother), my family, and our families should not feel unsafe at work, at their place of worship, or anywhere. Enough is enough—our community has been through enough trauma.” Johal was found with a paycheck in hand, ready to leave to celebrate a grandchild’s birthday.