New Delhi: In another incident of hate crime in the US, a 39-year-old Sikh man was shot on his arm outside his home in Kent, Washington (near Seattle) by a partially-masked gunman who shouted “go back to your own country”.
It is the latest in a series of attacks on members of the Indian community and is strikingly similar to last month’s shooting in Kansas of engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla by a US Navy veteran yelling “get out of my country”. On Thursday, Harnish Patel, an Indian-origin store owner, was shot dead in Lancaster County in South Carolina. In the latest case, US citizen Deep Rai was attacked on Friday by a six-foot-tall white man wearing a mask covering the lower half of his face. Mr Rai was apparently working on his vehicle outside his home when he was approached by the stranger, who walked up to the driveway. Soon, an argument broke out between the two. Mr Rai told police that the attacker made statements like “go back to your own country” before opening fire and shooting him in the arm.
The police are looking for the gunman, with Kent Police chief Ken Thomas saying that while Mr Rai sustained “non life-threatening injuries”, they were treating it as a “very serious incident”.
It’s hate crime: US authorities
The US authorities are treating the incident as a suspected hate crime, according to the Seattle Times. The police have reportedly reached out to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in probing the case.
External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday said she was in touch with Mr Rai’s family. “I have spoken to Sardar Harpal Singh, father of the victim. He told me that his son had a bullet injury on his arm. He is out of danger and is recovering in a private hospital,” she tweeted. Ms Swaraj also expressed her condolences to Mr Patel’s family, saying the “investigation of the case (Patel’s) is in progress.”
Various rights groups and ethnic Indian organisations in the US are reaching out to people of the community, asking them not to succumb to fear and immediately report any incident of hate crime or violence to law enforcement authorities.
