Sikh stand-in ‘violated tradition’

Police ‘‘violated tradition’’ when they featured a non-Sikh officer in a badly-wrapped turban in a popular recruitment video, a Sikh community leader says.

Constable Heber Gasu, who is of Samoan descent, was one of the stars of a humorous police recruitment video released in November.

Gasu sports a police-issue turban as he runs through a container yard – apparently on the hunt for a suspect.

The humorous clip has been viewed more than six million times and resulted in nearly 400 people applying to become police officers.

Rajinder Singh, the secretary general of the Supreme Sikh Society of New Zealand, said he was concerned to see the incorrectly-tied turban. ‘‘It is actually violating tradition, the Sikh way of tying the turban. It just looks a bit funny, it’s not [the] proper way to do it . . . This is not right.’’

Singh said he appreciated the inclusion of people of diverse ethnicities in the video, but wished a Sikh officer had been portrayed wearing the turban instead of Gasu.

Police figures showed there were about 25 Sikh police officers working throughout New Zealand.

A police spokeswoman confirmed Gasu was not a practising Sikh. However, he had a ‘‘close association’’ with the Sikh community and often wore a turban to ‘‘demonstrate his embracing of the Indian culture’’, she said.