Indian shot at in US, police rule out hate crime

WASHINGTON: US police detectives are investigating the shooting of a 30-year-old Indian man of “Muslim descent” as he walked to his car in the Albany Park neighbourhood in Chicago, but said it was not being treated as a hate crime.

The assailant had walked up to the man and opened fire on Wednesday. The victim was shot in the cheek and taken in serious condition to Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

The US police have not identified the victim and told Hindustan Times they could only say he is of “Muslim descent”.

But media reports in India named the victim as Mohammed Akbar, a university student from Hyderabad. His family has said Akbar was shot at around 8:45 am on Wednesday, and has sought the government’s help to reach the US to be with him, according to the reports.

The family has approached both the Telangana government and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, the reports said.

“The case is classified as aggravated battery with handgun,” Chicago police said in a statement. “Area North Detectives are still investigating. Listed under report # JA538605. No further details.” Nobody has been arrested yet.

The police said the case was “not listed as hate crime”, which

THE ASSAILANT HAD WALKED UP TO THE MAN AND OPENED FIRE ON WEDNESDAY, CHICAGO POLICE SAID

was a concern as there have been increasing number of attacks on Indians and Indian-descent Americans in recent months, sometimes mistaken for West Asians.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a software engineer from India, was fatally shot in Olathe, Kansas, in February by a US navy veteran who had told him and his friend at a bar to go back to their country.

Weeks later, a Sikh man was shot in his arm in his driveway in Kent, Washington state, by a masked man who had told him go back to his own country.

In 2016, there were 307 incidents of hate crimes against Muslims, a group targeted by Donald Trump both as candidate and president in his rhetoric and policies such as the travel ban. The number is up from 257 in 2015 and 154 in 2014, according to recent reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

There were 10 incidents of hate crimes against Hindus and seven against Sikhs among more than 6,000 such incidents motivated by biases towards religions, race or ethnicity and sexual orientation in 2016, the year of the rise of Trump.