Indian-origin man shot dead execution-style in New York
Darpan News Desk IANS, 27 Jun, 2022 04:45 PM
New York, June 27 (IANS) An Indian-origin man was shot dead execution-style as he was sitting in a jeep near his home in New York, according to media reports.
After the shooting on Saturday afternoon, Satnam Singh, 31, was taken to a local hospital where doctors declared him dead, the New York Daily News reported quoting police.
The incident happened in the South Ozone Park neighbourhood, which is next to Richmond Hill where two Sikh men had been assaulted in April in what police classified as hate crimes.
Both areas have large numbers of people of Indian origin.
The News said that there was a discrepancy between the police and eyewitness accounts of Satnam Singh's shooting.
It said that according to police, the shooter came on foot and shot him as he sat in the jeep, but a neighbour said the assailant had fired from a car and that her home security camera had captured the incident.
AmNY news site said that as of Sunday morning there has been no arrest and police were unsure of the motive.
The News, quoting police sources, said that Satnam Singh had borrowed the jeep from a friend and detectives were looking into whether he was the shooter's intended target or had been mistakenly killed by someone who actually wanted to attack the owner of the vehicle.
In April, two Sikhs had their turbans knocked off and robbed in separate incidents in Richmond Hill.
Police arrested two men in connection with those attacks and charged them with hate crimes.
The announcement came shortly after President Vladimir Putin authorised a "special military operation" in the conflict-hit Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. Flights to Kiev, Dnepr, Lvov and Odessa airports "are restricted due to potential hazard for civil aviation
The United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday that the situation was quickly deteriorating after Russia's invasion. It appealed to neighbouring countries to keep their borders open to people seeking a safe haven.
There are an estimated 25,000 Indian students in Ukraine alone who are pursuing medicine, engineering, and science courses. More than 2,500 students from Tamil Nadu are estimated to be studying in Ukraine.
The Foreign Secretary stated that External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has spoken to his Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, and Slovakian counterparts for setting up a camp at border areas for evacuation of stranded Indian nationals. He also stated that flight options are available through Dubai and Istanbul and that the Indian Embassy continues to be operational in Ukraine.
The Ministry of External Affairs in touch with all the neighbouring countries surrounding Ukraine to even evacuate Indian citizens. Many citizens who were to fly back to India were left at the airport after closure of Ukrainian airspace following Russia's Vladimir Putin announcement of a military operation in Ukraine.
Amidst the prevailing tension, the Indian students stranded in Ukraine are left with no choice but to queue up outside the Indian Embassy in Kiev seeking the authorities' help as they ran out of food and money. The Russian military actions in Ukraine have triggered panic among all sections, including students from India.
