Educators at the first school in the United States to be named after a person of Sikh descent held its ribbon cutting on Thursday in west central Fresno.
Jaswant Singh Khalra Elementary School, on Brawley and Shields Avenues, will be Central Unified School District’s 15th elementary school. It is slated to open its doors to over 600 students in August and will serve students in pre-school to sixth grade.
Khalra was a bank director in the state of Punjab, India. He became a human rights activist after investigating and bringing attention to the disappearances of over 25,000 people and 2,000 police officers after the 1984 Sikh Genocide. After repeated threats, Khalra was kidnapped in 1995 by Punjab police officers and murdered…