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A New York school district has revoked the suspension of a Sikh teenager for carrying a kirpan and allowed him to wear a smaller version of the sacred religious symbol to school.
Authorities in Central 7 school district lifted the suspension on Amandeep Singh, a ninth-grade honors student of Hartsdale, reports in New York said.
Singh was suspended for eight days from Woodlands High School on February 4 after he was found carrying a kirpan.
The school authorities believed it was a weapon. "We had to balance the student's First Amendment rights along with the safety of all of our students in the district," school superintendent Josephine Mofett was quoted as saying.
She explained that weapons of all kinds are forbidden at school.
Soon after the suspension, Singh's brother Kamaldeep Singh met school officials and said several other classroom items, including a steel ruler and compass, were sharper than the kirpan, which was three inches long, the reports said.
After the suspension was widely published, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in Washington sent their lawyers to assist Amandeep.
The school then revoked the suspension last week.