Sikh man shot at home in Kent, asked to ‘go back’

DEEP RAI WAS WORKING ON HIS CAR AT HIS KENT HOME WHEN THE MASKED ASSAILANT WALKED UP TO HIM AND STARTED AN ARGUMENT

An Indian-origin Sikh man was shot at in his driveway in Kent in Washington district by a masked assailant who shouted at him to “go back to your own country”, days after an Indian engineer, Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead at a bar in Kansas by a US navy veteran.

The victim, Deep Rai (39), was working on his car in the driveway of his house in Kent at 8pm when the masked assailant walked up to him and started an argument, following which he shot Rai on the arm.

The shooter’s mask covered the lower portion of his face, and he was yet to be identified. The local police have reportedly sought the FBI’s help in investigating the case, which appeared to be a hate-crime.

“We are treating this as a very serious incident,” Kent police chief Ken Thomas told Seattle Times on Saturday.

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”.

Members of the Indian community have complained of suffering slurs and hateful behaviour across the country, with some having to relocate to end the harassment.

“While we appreciate the efforts of state and local officials to respond to attacks like this, we need our national leaders to make hate crime prevention a top priority,” Rajdeep Singh of the Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group that works with the FBI in fighting this hostility, said in a statement.