A Sikh man was killed for looking like ‘the enemy’ after 9/11. Sikhs say the danger hasn’t passed.

(RNS) — Every year since 2001, the family of Balbir Singh Sodhi has held a solemn ritual: a vigil to honor the Sikh immigrant, gas station owner and father of five believed to be the first person killed in a hate crime after 9/11. Sodhi was planting flowers in front of his gas station in Mesa, Arizona, to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks when he was shot five times.

The man convicted of the crime, Frank Roque, had seen Sodhi’s turban and long beard — both important symbols of faith for Sikh men — and mistaken him for an Arab Muslim in the days following the attacks. Roque, enraged by footage of 9/11, had reportedly told an Applebee’s waiter he was going to “shoot some towel heads.” When police arrested him after the shooting, he shouted that he was a patriot.

A quarter-century after Sodhi’s killing forced the country to start to reckon with anti-Sikh hate crimes, advocates say the threat has not faded — rather, it has been amplified by the federal government. Last week, the Department of Homeland Security posted, then deleted,  a n AI-generated image mocking a Sikh truck driver. It came as an analysis of FBI data finds that anti-Sikh hate crimes rose about 25%…