California Sikh student kicked off bus for refusing to remove kirpan

A Sikh college student in California was kicked off a bus for wearing his faith.

20-year-old Harsimram Singh said an Amtrak bus driver alerted the police after spotting him with the kirpan, a curved ceremonial knife that baptized Sikhs are required to carry at all times.

According to the New York Daily News, cops told him to store the kirpan in the luggage compartment or find another way to travel. Singh chose to stick to his religion.

The University of California-Davis student said that he has been riding Amtrak for two years, sometimes with the same driver, and has never had an issue before.

Singh said that he often wears his kirpan around campus and has traveled before with it on Amtrak, but this was the first time he's encountered any sort of problem.

Amtrak's policy is that knives and weapons should be stored in checked luggage. The Transportation Safety Agency enforces the same rules on airplanes, the report added.