New York, September 16
A 52-year-old Sikh and a Pakistani were shot dead in Arizona and Texas in continuing attacks on ethnic immigrants following last week’s terrorist strikes in the USA.Four unidentified gunmen drove up in two pick-up trucks to the gas filling station owned by Balbir Singh Sodhi at Mesa in Arizona and shot him dead last night, possibly mistaking him as an Arab, Rajwant Singh, President of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said.
In a separate attack, Pakistani immigrant Waquer Hasan, 46, was shot dead in his grocery store in Dallas, Texas.
“We don’t deserve this kind of treatment,” said Sodhi’s younger brother Latwinder Singh Sodhi. “He wouldn’t have any enemies,” said Balbir’s cousin Harjit Singh.
The owners, brothers Ali Saad and Saad Saad, would not identify the clerk.
Balbir Singh Sodhi, according to Rajwant Singh, had received numerous death threats just as “many thousands of Sikhs are receiving throughout the nation.”
Dr Singh is closely associated with a major gurdwara and various Sikh associations in Washington and was on the White House all religious advisory body during the Clinton Administration.
Several Sikhs and Muslims have been harassed, abused and beaten up across the USA and most of Muslim institutions closed after being targeted by hate groups in the wake of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11.
Gurdwaras, Hindu temples and mosques have been fired at or damaged.
PTI
