By Yashwant Raj Washington 31 August : A man of Indian origin has been accused with murder in a hateful manner against an Indian-American man in possibly the first of cases of this kind.
California Prosecutors have accused Tejinder Singh, 37 with hate crime in violation of civil rights as well as assault and disturbing the peace through his use of offensive language.
He has not been placed in custody, but he is being placed on probation.A court date is awaiting.
Indians and Indian-born Americans have been targeted for sexist comments and even threats of violence.Srinivas Kuchibhotla was an engineer for computers was killed in Kansas in 2017 by a man who claimed he mistakenly believed he was an individual of the Middle East.
Balbir Singh Sodhi was the first victim killed in the reaction to the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001.He was mistaken for a person who was from the Middle East.
Sikhs are often targeted.
However, the incident on Monday in California may be the first time of an Indian-born American being accused of being involved in an act of hatred against another person of Indian descent.
Singh took aim at the victim’s religion and the country of birth, and his ethnicity.
In a video of the incident Singh can be seen dumping himself onto a different customer, who self-identified as Krishnan Jayaraman at a Taco Bell restaurant in California on Monday.
Singh frequently said he was “dirty ass Hindu”, “ugly ass Hindu” and often used the word “N-word.He changed to Punjabi to denigrate Indira Gandhi Indira Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister who was killed by her Sikh bodyguards.
He ridiculed Jayaraman’s selection of “bean burritos” that are vegetarian as well as the way he was looking, and repeatedly pointed at his “open toes” and called his appearance “disgusting”.
“Maybe put on some socks.Nobody would want to see your slobbery feet.You’re disgusting.You people are ugly.You’re disgusting, nasty.You’re disgusting, dog.really,” he said.
Singh continued to tell Jayaraman that it was “you individuals” that were the “first to kneel” prior to the East India Company, the English trading company that was responsible for the colonization of India by the British for more than 200 years.
The man then went on to denigrate Jayaraman as one of those who were brought to the US through the H-1B visa program which is a temporary non-immigrant work visa that allows American businesses to employ foreign workers to compensate for the shortage of local labor in high-skilled fields.
The program has been held accountable by critics for the loss of jobs and the repercussions was felt by Indians who work here as well as Indian Americans at large.
“The thing that made me sick was that the person who was abused was able to spit on the counter at which food was served.
And even after pointing it out that the Taco Bell employees continued serving the food that was on the counter,” Jayaraman wrote in an update on Twitter, in which he also thanked Fremont police for their prompt response.
The Fremont incident occurred to the following of another incident in which Indians or Indian Americans were targets of verbal abuse and slander.
“Go back to India we are not here for you,” a woman, who identified herself as Mexican-American, told an entire group of Indian Americans in Plano, Texas last Saturday.
She was later arrested.”This incident is an act of hate in conformity with Texas law,” the Plano police stated in an announcement.”This incident could also be a hate-crime which is based on federal law and we’re working with the FBI and the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division regarding this matter.”
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