POLICE IN A Seattle suburb are seeking a gunman who had shot a Sikh man in the arm and told him to “go back to your own country,” the Seattle Times reports.
India’s foreign minister said on Twitter that the victim is identified Deep Rai and he told police he was working in his driveway on Friday when the unidentified man approached him.
“I am sorry to know about the attack on Deep Rai, a U.S. national of Indian origin,” Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said. He added that he had spoken to the father of the victim.
Rai told police in the Seattle suburb of Kent that the shooter is 6-foot-tall, white and has a stocky build. He said the man was wearing a mask covering the lower half of his face.
Recently, South Asians have been on edge after a deadly shooting in a suburban Kansas City bar that the FBI is investigating as a hate crime. Authorities said witnesses to the shooting, which left an Indian man dead and another wounded, said the suspect yelled “get out of my country” before he opened fire.
In suburban Seattle, Rai told police the suspect said he should go back to his homeland and the two got into an argument, according to the paper. It said the victim told police the man then shot him in the arm.
Sikhs have previously been the target of attacks in the US After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the backlash that hit Muslims around the country expanded to include those of the Sikh faith, the men often identified by a turban and a long beard.
Male observant Sikhs often cover their heads with turbans, which are considered sacred, and refrain from shaving their beards. The faith comes from South Asia’s Punjab region.
In 2012, a man shot and killed six Sikh worshippers and wounded four others at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee before killing himself.
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