United States police surrounded a Sikh man in Pennsylvania on Thursday after receiving reports of a “Muslim man walking around a shopping centre with a large sword”, PTI reported. While 33-year-old Harpreet Singh Khalsa has claimed the incident was a case of racial profiling, the local police dismissed his allegations and said that their informants were justified in reporting their concerns.

Police officials in Bethlehem Township said they received several calls about the “suspicious man” whom they found sitting in a van. Khalsa, who had travelled from Maryland, was carrying a kirpan — one of the five articles that followers of Sikhism carry on their person. He said he was embarrassed and humiliated and would not return to the town as he was treated in an “un-American way”.