Indian in New Zealand told to ‘go back’ in racist attack

Narindervir Singh said he was filming from inside his vehicle when the incident happened on a weekday last week. “He was driving that car [pointing to a white Holden] and now he’s trying to threaten me, giving me bad names,” Singh says in a video which was being streamed live onto  Facebook. 

The abuser, who is seen in the video wearing a grey Everlast t-shirt, was tail-gating according to Singh, who says he simply pulled over to let him pass. The man also made derogatory remarks about Punjabi people, Newshub reported. As Singh drove off, the abuser exposed himself. 

“It really shocked me and after he [left], I was really shaken,” Newshub quoted Singh as saying. “I don’t know what to do, it really hurts my heart...The first thing in my mind was that he might hurt me with some weapon.” 

When Singh left, he assumed it was all over. But when he parked on a nearby side street, he says the white Holden pulled up once again and the racist rant continued. Another man, Bikramjit Singh, suffered similar abuse last week as he left a Papatoetoe storage facility. A man who claimed Bikramjit was speeding yelled at him, saying: “Go back to your country - slow down! You know what the speed limit is here.” Both men have filed complaints with police.

The FBI has joined the investigation into the shooting of a Sikh man by a partially-masked gunman, who shouted “go back to your own country”, in a suspected hate crime. Deep Rai, a US national of Indian-origin, was shot outside his home in Kent, Washington, on Friday and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the incident as a potentially hate-motivated crime. “The Seattle FBI is assisting the Kent Police Department through a joint investigation of the shooting incident. The FBI remains committed to investigating crimes that are potentially hate-motivated and we continue to work with all our community partners in the Seattle area,” said FBI Seattle Spokesperson Ayn Dietrich. The FBI is also investigating another shooting in Kansas last week as a hate crime, in which 32-year-old Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed when 51-year-old US Navy veteran Adam Purinton opened fire at him and his friend Alok Madasani, yelling “get out of my country”.

Meanwhile, the US has assured India of “speedy justice” to the Indian-American victims of hate-related crimes as the Indian envoy reached out to the State Department to convey his “deep concerns” over such tragic incidents. “State Department, on behalf of US Govt, expressed condolences and assured they are working with all agencies concerned to ensure speedy justice,” the Indian Embassy in the US said in a series of tweets. India’s Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna reached out to the State Department to convey his “deep concerns” to the US government on the recent tragic incidents involving Harnish Patel and Deep Rai.