A race row has erupted at BBC's flagship Asian station, which has been accused of being insensitive towards Sikhs and encouraging a Muslim presenter to mock Sikhism.
"We should not be paying a licence fee for promoting the ignorance-based ramblings of those bent on self-promotion who sneer at Asian religion and culture," said Hardeep Singh, a spokesman of the Sikh Media Monitoring Group, which accused BBC's Asian Network of being insensitive towards listeners from the minority community.
The Sikh Group has written to the BBC asking for a full transcript of Adil Ray's show, which was removed from their website after threats from angry Sikh listeners who accused the popular Muslim presenter of denigrating the "kirpan" dagger an important religious symbol and one of five ceremonial symbols that baptised Sikhs are expected to wear at all times, 'The Independent' newspaper said on Thursday.
Members of the Sikh community complained that Ray, in the show broadcast by the Birmingham-based network on Thursday August 6, had been disparaging about whether Sikhs really needed to carry kirpans.
The complaint was based on Ray's discussion of the cancellation of a Punjabi music concert in Canada where police had banned Sikhs who refused to remove their "kirpan", the British daily reported.
