Days after Kansas shooting, an Indian-origin businessman Harnish Patel has been shot dead in South Carolina. A media report said, Harnish had closed his shop at 11.24 pm and after few minutes he was shot dead outside his house in Lancaster on Thursday.
Patel closed his store and drove in his silver minivan to his nearby home where authorities believe he was confronted by his killer. The store is about 6 km from his house, The Herald reported.
He had locked up his nearby store less than 10 minutes before he was found dead, police said.
Local officials have dismissed that Patel’s death has any connection with racial bias.
“I don’t have any reason to believe that this was racially motivated,” County Sheriff Barry Faile said on Friday.
Earlier on February 22, a 32-year-old, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an engineer hailing from India, working at the Garmin headquarters in Olathe, was killed in the shooting, another Indian and his colleague Alok Madasani was critically injured . A man identified as Ian Grillot was also injured in the shooting.
The President of the United States Donald Trump condemned the hate crime saying, “No one should be afraid to follow a religion of their choice.” The White House Press Secretary and Communications Director for Trump, Sean Spicer released a statement saying that the President condemned hateful acts.
“President continues to condemn any other form of anti-Semitic and hateful acts in the strongest terms,” he said.
In the past few days, many incidents of hate crime have been recorded against Indians.
Indian-origin businessman shot dead outside his home in South Carolina #USA pic.twitter.com/LAYeN3XSCI
— ANI (@ANI_news) March 4, 2017
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