Hateful graffiti painted on Indian’s shop in US; police probing case as hate crime

Los Angeles, July 30: Indian origin man’s auto parts shop was vandalised in Nevada, US with hateful graffiti like ‘go home indian’ and “I will kill you” scrawled on the walls. Police are investigating the crime as a case of hate crime.

The 60 year-old Indian origin Muslim man Dr Waqar “Vic” Ahmed said he was accustomed to such racist taunts and experienced attacks on his Indian heritage and Muslim faith in the past, but never anything like this.

The Nye County Sheriff’s office said the hateful graffiti was discovered last Sunday in front of the shop.

The business was spray painted with derogatory words against the owner, including things like ‘Foreigner go home’, ‘Camel jockey’, ‘I will kill you’ and ‘I will get you’ scrawled across the walls of his shop. “I had a guy tell me once to go back to my third world country. I had to tell him what India was,” Ahmed was quoted as saying by KSNV-TV.

“I hate to think that kind of thing is going on in Nye County and we’re going to do everything we possibly can to stop it, if it does,” Nye county sheriff Sharon Wehrly was quoted as saying.

No suspects have been identified but they could face charges for malicious destruction of property. The Nye County Sheriff’s Office currently has a team of five investigators looking into the crime. If found to be a case of hate crime, the investigation would be taken over by the FBI.

“Be more tolerant. The world’s a big place and there’s enough room for everybody,” said Ahmed. He said that the hatred was being fed by ignorance and that educated people treated him just fine.