2 Uri ‘guides’ fled PoK after teasing village girl

for them. In fact, they entered India two days after the September 18 attack on the Uri army base, the NIA official said on condition of anonymity. Nineteen soldiers were killed in the audacious strike carried out by suspected Pakistani militants.

“They ran away but accidently crossed the LoC (line of control) in Jammu and Kashmir where they were found loitering close to Uri on September 20 and picked up by locals,” the official, who is investigating the attack, said.

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A Sikh man was shot at and wounded in his driveway in Kent, Washington, by a masked assailant who then called out to him to “go back to your own country”, a variation of the last words Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla heard at a bar in Olathe, Kansas, last month in a hate-crime murder that shook up both the US and India.

On Thursday, a 43-year-old Indian-origin store owner in South Carolina, Harnish Patel, was shot dead outside his home, although the county sheriff said this “may not be a hate crime”.

The Kent shooting took place at 8pm, according to local police. The assailant walked up to the victim, a 39-year-old Sikh who was working on his car in the driveway. They had an argument that ended with the shooter opening fire, and telling him to return to his country.

The shooter, who wore a mask covering the lower portion of his face, had not been identified till the filing of this report and the local police were reported to have sought the FBI’s help in investigating the case, which appeared to be a hate crime.

“We’re early on in our investigation,” Kent police chief Ken Thomas told Seattle Times. “We are treating this as a very serious incident.”

The victim, identified by Indian authorities as Deep Rai, was shot in the arm and was released from hospital after treatment.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj expressed concern over the South Carolina and Kent attacks.

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