Sikh man attacked with hammer by hate-fuelled Black assailant in US
New York, May 4: A Sikh man was attacked with a hammer by a Black assailant who shouted at him "I don't like you" and "You're not the same skin" at a hotel in Brooklyn here, prompting a prominent New-York based advocacy group to call on investigators to examine if the assault was a hate crime incident.
Sumit Ahluwalia, 32, of Astoria has said his assailant was fuelled by racial hatred, according to a report on New York Daily News website.
Ahluwalia said the man, a Black, assaulted him on April 26 at his workplace, the Quality Inn in Brownsville. He said the man came into the lobby of the hotel at around 8 am and started shouting while the front desk lady asked him if he needed help.
Ahluwalia stepped into the lobby to speak with the man and to seek the hotel security guard. At that point, the assailant started running towards me, very fast, and he put his hand in the pocket I thought, He's pulling out a gun''', the report said.
Pleading with the man, the victim said, What happened? You're my brother.
The attacker responded You're not the same skin, Ahluwalia said, adding that the man then banged on my head with the hammer so hard.
The assailant then screamed, I don't like you, and ran away, according to the report.
It said the victim couldn't feel what happened with me and was eventually taken to an emergency room.
I couldn't sleep. I had a big bump on my head. I could fall feeling dizziness, and the next morning I went to the doctor, he said, adding that five days later, he was still feeling anxious and fearful.
I didn't do anything I don't deserve this. I'm a hardworking guy, wake up in the morning 6 a.m. and go home at 7 pm, he said.
Police have released pictures of the suspect, who was still being sought.
Advocacy group The Sikh Coalition said its legal team is providing free legal services to Ahluwalia.
We have already been in direct communication with law enforcement and demanded that investigators examine the real possibility that bias was a motive, it said, adding that anyone with information about the incident should contact the New York Police Department.
The tragic incident comes as the US has witnessed a recent wave of anti-Asian hate crimes during this pandemic.
Eight people, including four Sikhs, were killed in a mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis last month.
In March last year, a man stabbed two Asian American children - aged 2 and 6 - and their father at Sam's Club in Texas because he thought the family was Chinese, and infecting people with the coronavirus.
A group of Democratic Senators in May last year said there has been a surge in hate crime against Asian-Americans amid coronavirus pandemic and had urged the Trump administration to take concrete steps to arrest the spike.
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Hamas accepts cease-fire proposal for Gaza, but Israel's stance still uncertain
Jerusalem, May 6: Hamas announced Monday it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but there was no immediate word from Israel, leaving it uncertain whether a deal had been sealed to bring a halt to the seven-month-long war in Gaza.
It was the first glimmer of hope that a deal might avert further bloodshed. Hours earlier, Israel ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating the southern Gaza town of Rafah, signalling that an attack was imminent. The United States and other key allies of Israel oppose an offensive on Rafah, where around 1.4 million Palestinians, more than half of Gaza's population, are sheltering.
An official familiar with Israeli thinking said Israeli officials were examining the proposal, but the plan approved by Hamas was not the framework Israel proposed.
An American official also said the US was still waiting to learn more about the Hamas position and whether it reflected an agreement to what had already been signed off on by Israel and international negotiators or something else. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity as a stance was still being formulated.
Details of the proposal have not been released. Touring the region last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had pressed Hamas to take the deal, and Egyptian officials said it called for a cease-fire of multiple stages starting with a limited hostage release and some Israeli troop pullbacks from Gaza. The two sides would also negotiate a “permanent calm” that would lead to a full hostage release and greater Israeli withdrawal, they said.
