Four Sikhs massacred while at work in US shooting

NEW YORK: Four Sikhs were massacred at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis when a former employee stormed the complex in the latest of series of mass shootings in the US, according to the Sikh Coalition.

"We are sad to confirm that at least four of those killed in Thursday night's attacks are members of the Indianapolis Sikh community," the Coalition said on Friday. Officials said that the gunman killed himself after murdering eight people and wounding at least seven, five of whom were hospitalised. Three of the Sikhs killed were in their 60s and two were women, according to a list released by police late Friday night.

Among the eight people killed were Amarjeet Kaur Johal, 66, Jaswinder Kaur, 64, Jaswinder Singh, 68, and Amarjit Sekhon, 48.

Police identified the alleged killer as Brandon Scott Hole, 19, and from a picture of him released by the Indianapolis Police Department, he appeared to be white.

He had come on the law enforcement radar previously but no action had been taken against him other than seizing a shotgun and returning it to him.

The head of the local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Paul Keenan, said that "no Racially Motivated Violent Extremism (RMVE) ideology was identified" when he was investigated. Indianapolis Police Deputy Chief Craig McCartt said that he could not yet ascribe a motive for the killings.

Sikh Coalition Executive Director Satjeet Kaur said: "While we don't yet know the motive of the shooter, he targeted a facility known to be heavily populated by Sikh employees, and the attack is traumatic for our community as we continue to face senseless violence." Sikhs have for long been victims of bias attacks in US, often being mistaken for Muslims because of their turbans.

According to the FBI's hate crime statistics for 2019, the latest available, there were 49 anti-Sikh attacks with 60 victims.

In the worst attack targeting Sikhs, a former serviceman described as a White supremacist killed seven people at a gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, wounded four before killing himself in 2012.

"Enough is enough, our community has been through enough trauma," said Komal Chohan, the grand-daughter of one of the victims of the Indianapolis massacre. President Joe Biden ordered the national flag flown at half mast at all government facilities and US Embassies abroad to mourn the deaths.

McCartt told reporters that Hole began shooting people in the parking lot of the major US parcel and courier company facility killing four people, then entered the building and killed four others. (IANS)