Alistair Campbell
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
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Welcome back to The Rest Is Politics.
Well, I think the first thing is that it took, I think, quite a long time for most people to really understand what had happened.
So I think it's quite important to get back to what actually happened.
And then we'll get on to the question of what did the police do wrong and what we can conclude from that.
So as you say, it's after 11pm at night.
And the first thing to understand is Henry was a lovely, kind, empathetic boy.
And Vikram Digwa brutally murdered him, ended his life, plunged Henry's family into complete misery, brought incredible shame on a whole series of bits of society, and of course, massive social unrest.
But what was the incident that led up to it?
So, Henry Nowak is walking home about 11pm at night.
He has a chance meeting with a man, Vikram Digwa, who is wearing a large Sikh dagger openly on his clothing.
And this is something which
members of the Nihang Order of Sikhs in Britain are able to wear.
It's a privilege, it's also very much a responsibility, and it's never to be used in an offensive way.
There is then an incredibly complicated debate, which we don't need to get into, about the relationship between the kirpan, which is a ceremonial knife which a Sikh carries within his garments,
and the display of an external knife associated with the Nihang order of Sikhs, and some members of Sikh communities saying this wasn't a kirpan, this was a Persian knife.
But the basic point is that certainly from the point of view of Vikram Digwa and many young Sikhs who wear this, this was part of their religious identity.
There is an interaction.
And Henry, perhaps cheekily, asks Vikram if he's a bad man and starts filming Digwa on his phone.
Digwer seems to have felt disrespected and felt the filming was intrusive.