00:00Yesterday, people in Margate met to pay respects to a young man who was murdered 127 miles down the coastline.
00:08Henry Novak was an 18-year-old Southampton student who lost his life after being stabbed and then falsely accused
00:14of racism by his attacker.
00:17Last week, Vikram Digwar was jailed for life for his murder.
00:20He was found to be carrying two knives, one knife in a sheaf, as well as a larger dagger.
00:25The court said this was in line with a Sikh religious uniform called a kirpan, although the Sikh Federation debates
00:32this.
00:32So you can see on the monitor next to me, that's a picture of a traditional kirpan.
00:37Now, a kirpan can be of any size.
00:39The legal limit for the knife you can carry in the UK is three inches long.
00:44So that's just like a pen knife. People might take that camping or just carry it around on their person.
00:48However, a kirpan can be longer than three inches and still legally be allowed to be carried.
00:53The case has ignited debate as to whether knives of a certain length should be able to be legally carried
00:58for religious reasons.
00:59Gravesend Kirdwara is the biggest Kirdwara in Europe and is home to a huge Sikh community.
01:05It's really a tragic act, but entirely indefensible.
01:10But it wasn't caused by a kirpan carried by Sikhs in a traditional way.
01:15The kirpan is one of the five Ks, as they're known, the five articles of faith carried by Sikhs who
01:22are initiated into faith, members of the culture.
01:25And the kirpan itself is a reminder that you're there to defend injustice.
01:31It's not necessarily there for the kirpan to be used as a weapon.
01:35People are now calling for the ability to carry a kirpan to be banned. What do you think of that?
01:41I think it's really unjustified, especially when Sikhs have been in this country for probably around 150 years.
01:49And we don't have a single incident where a kirpan has been used, fakely in an incident such as this.
01:57And even in this incident it wasn't used.
02:00So why the focus on banning the kirpan is really hard to understand.
02:05In Kent, there are 469 cases of people being stopped with a bladed article in public in 2025.
02:12The figures prompt questions about the popularity of knives in the general public.
02:16Well, I've lived life in and out of prison.
02:19I've stabbed people with a bladed article.
02:24And depending on where you stab that person, it can do a lot of damage.
02:29This guy who stabbed Harry, he can't say, oh, I was at a ceremony or something, you know, I've seen
02:43those knives.
02:44And most of the Sikh community are not using them knives to cause harm to anyone.
02:51But because it's happened, there now has to be a general ban.
02:58I think whether it be three inches or longer, you have to ban it.
03:03As debates begin on religious knives and allegations that different races receive different treatments by police,
03:09with King County Council leader Lyndon Kim-Karron muscling in too,
03:13NOAC's family say they don't want his death to be used to create further division, hatred or tension.
03:19Chloe Brewster for KMTV.
03:21In Gravesend.
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