Officials at a North Carolina university are being criticized after an incident in which a Sikh student was detained for wearing a kirpan, a curved dagger carried by some Sikhs as part of their faith.

The incident took place Thursday in a student union building at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. A 44-second video of the incident was posted Friday afternoon on Twitter, where it has since been viewed more than 3.5 million times.

Kirpans are one of five symbolic articles central to the expression of faith for baptized Sikhs and are often blunt and sewn into the sheath.

“It’s really unfortunate that we’re here in 2022 and still having these issues,” said Kiran Kaur Gill, executive director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, known as SALDEF. “It’s a way of practicing and showing faith. A lot of times you can’t even remove them from the sheath.”