❓ WHAT HAPPENED: Henry Nowak, a white university student in Southampton, England, died after being repeatedly stabbed with an eight-inch Sikh dagger by Vikrum Digwa, 23. Nowak bled to death in handcuffs after Digwa claimed he had been racially abused by Nowak, prompting police officers responding to the incident to arrest the stabbed teenager.

📰 DETAIL: Details of the alleged murder, which took place on December 3, 2023, are now emerging at Southampton Crown Court, where Digwa is denying the charges against him, citing self-defense. Nicholas Lobbenberg KC described Digwa’s knife as a shastar, and noted that Digwa also carried a Sikh kirpan knife around his neck. Unlike most people in Britain, Sikhs have a special dispensation to carry weapons as a religious obligation, but prosecutors are still charging Digwa for weapons offenses on the grounds that his kirpan satisfied this religious obligation, making the larger shastar unnecessary. Lobbenberg told the court that Digwa and Nowak encountered each other on the street while the teen was walking home from a night out, with the Sikh telling the teenager “I’m a bad man” in an interaction that was captured by a cell phone video. Digwa is alleged to have stabbed Nowak and “aggressively pursued” him to continue the attack. However, when police arrived at the scene, they appear to have sided with the Sikh when he claimed the stabbed teenager had racially abused him, putting him under arrest. Nowak passed out in handcuffs and bled to death in the street, with belated first aid efforts by the police and an air ambulance doctor being unable to save him.

💬 KEY QUOTE: “[Digwa] didn’t seek help for the man he had injured with his sizeable knife, instead he accused him of being a racist and being drunk… Vikrum said [Nowak] had not been stabbed. This was a lie. This was a man Vikrum Digwa stabbed more than once,” prosecutor Nicholas Lobbenberg KC told the court.