US Sikh brutally beaten up amid barrage of racial slurs

New York, September 10

An elderly Sikh-American was brutally assaulted by an assailant, who yelled racial slurs like “terrorist” and “Bin Laden”, in an apparent hate crime just before the US commemorates the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Inderjit Singh Mukker of Chicago was assaulted on September 8 when the assailant pulled up to his car yelling racial slurs. The incident took place when Mukker, a US citizen and father of two, was on his way to a grocery store. He was repeatedly cut off by the assailant driving a car. Mukker pulled over to the side of the road to let him pass, but the driver instead pulled in front of his car and aggressively approached Mukker’s vehicle, according to information by advocacy group The Sikh Coalition.

The assailant then reached into the car and repeatedly punched Mukker in the face, following which he lost consciousness. He suffered several facial injuries, including a fractured cheekbone. He was rushed to a hospital, where he received six stitches, treatment for lacerations, bruising and swelling. The suspect was taken into custody.

“No American should be afraid to practise their faith in our country,” Mukker said.

“I’m thankful for the swift response of the authorities to apprehend the individual, but without this being fully investigated as a hate crime, we risk ignoring the horrific pattern of intolerance, abuse and violence that Sikhs and other minority communities in this country continue to face,” he added.

The Sikh Coalition’s Legal Director, Harsimran Kaur, said, “The group believes that Mukker was targeted and assaulted because of his Sikh religious appearance, race or national origin.”

“We request an immediate investigation and call on local and federal agencies to investigate this attack as a hate crime,” Kaur said. The Sikh Coalition said the attack, on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary, is latest in the line of violent attacks on Sikhs in America.

Last August, Sandeep Singh, a Sikh father in New York City, was run over after being called a “terrorist”.

The Sikh Coalition said Sikhs continue to experience a high volume of hate crimes and in the past 12 months alone, a Sikh professor was assaulted in Harlem, a Sikh pedestrian had his turban forcibly removed near Wall Street and a Sikh business owner was run over and dragged under a truck in Queens. — PTI

Past hate crimes

• Sept 15, 2001 Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 49-year-old Sikh, was shot and killed outside the gas station he owned at Mesa, Arizona
• March 13, 2004 Gurdwara Sahib in Fresno, California, was vandalised with graffiti messages: “Rags Go Home” and “It’s Not Your Country” 
• May 24, 2007 A 15-year-old student’s hair was forcibly shorn by a senior student at his high school in New York
• Nov 29, 2010 Harbhajan Singh, a cab driver, was attacked by passengers, who called him Osama, in California 
• Aug 5, 2012 40-year-old Wade Michael Page fatally shot six people and injured four at a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin