Indian-origin teen charged with threatening to kill Biden, Harris
Darpan News Desk IANS, 23 May, 2023 11:33 AM
ew York, May 23 (IANS) An Indian-origin teen has been charged with threatening to kill President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in order to "seize power", according to media reports quoting officials.
Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, allegedly rammed a rented truck into White House House barriers on Monday night.
ABC News said that according to police he was charged with "threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm on a President, Vice President or their families".
The network reported that three law enforcement sources confirmed that Kandula told law enforcement that "he wanted to seize power, take over the government and kill the president".
Officials were also looking into the "mental health component" of the attack, it added.
Kandula may have neo-Nazi sympathies, according to media reports.
WUSA9 TV station reported that a Nazi flag was removed from the vehicle.
NBC News said that the charges of threatening to kill, kidnap or harm the President, Vice President or a relative stemmed from his statements to the Secret Service, the agency that protects the President and other VIPs.
Secret Service Spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said that shortly before 10.00 p.m., officers "detained the driver of a box truck after the vehicle collided with security barriers on the north side of Lafayette Square at 16th Street".
NBC News reported that a robot was used to examine the truck for explosives but none were found.
There were no injuries to anyone in the incident and it was not known if Biden or Harris were at the White House at that time.
Biden had held talks with Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the White House on averting a financial crisis by raising the borrowing limits for the US government to avoid a default.
Kandula, who is from Chesterfield in Missouri state, flew to Washington and rested the truck at the airport.
The bodies of eight-month-old Aroohi Dheri, her parents Jasleen Kaur, 27, and Jasdeep Singh, 36, and her uncle Amandeep Singh, 39 were found in an "extremely remote" area near the intersection of Indiana and Hutchins roads. Jesus Salgado is said to have had a long-standing feud with the family and was a former employee in their trucking business.
Indian-origin people across the US have often been targets of robbers because they are believed to have lots of jewellery. The four, who had been under surveillance, were caught in another suburb, New Hyde Park, where they had targeted a house after following a woman, police said.
Claudio Campos, 28, attacked Avtar Singh in broad daylight as he was walking home from work through the Tib Street area of the City Centre on June 23. Campos, who was with his partner at the time, proceeded to walk up behind Avtar before violently punching him to the head. Singh fell into the middle of the road where he stayed unconscious until a passer-by called for an ambulance.
Quoting hate crime statistics 2021-22, Gill, an MP from Birmingham, said hate crimes against Sikhs rose by 169 per cent in comparison to a 38 per cent increase in reported religious hate crimes overall. The 2001 census recorded 336,000 Sikhs living in Britain. Gill said 301 hate crimes against Sikhs were reported in 2021-22, up from 112 in 2020-2021.
Jatinder Singh, 37, and his partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, 40, appeared by video link from prison in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday, where they were committed to stand trial over theft and other charges, the Canberra Times reported. Crypto.com intended to refund Manivel $100 but she was erroneously transferred $10,474,143.
The walls of India K' Raja restaurant, owned and operated by Tony Sappal, were spray-painted with derogatory words and phrases targeting Asian Americans. "For 27 years, this has been home. Nobody has ever displayed that kind of anger or hate to us," Sappal told the Richmond Times Dispatch.
