Indian Man Shot Dead Outside Gurdwara in Alabama; Second Case Targeting Diaspora in US State – News18

Raj Singh, a Sikh musician who was part of a Sikh kirtan group, was shot dead outside a gurdwara at Selma in the US state of Alabama on Saturday (February 24). Raj Singh, aka Goldy, who hails from Tanda Sahuwala village in Bijnor district in UP, was a ragi (musician) who was in the US with his musical group for one and a half years.

Goldy was standing outside the gurdwara when unidentified assailants shot him in the abdomen. His family received the news of his death on Sunday.

“We were informed about the incident by relatives. It has been five days, and his postmortem is yet to be done. We have reached out to the gurdwara committee for more information, and they are helping us. We have also appealed to our government for justice and the arrest of the killers,” Gurdeep Singh, the deceased’s brother-in-law, was quoted as saying by the Times of India.

Goldy’s family believes that his killing could be a case of hate crime, even though the precise motive behind Singh’s murder is yet to be ascertained.

Selma police are saying there is no indication of racial motivation behind Raj Singh’s killing, according to Selma-based news outlet GVWire, which cited sergeant Caleb Garcia.

This is the second murder of an Indian-origin person in the US state in the month of February. Earlier last month, Pravin Raojibhai Patel, 76, an American hotelier of Indian origin was shot dead after a confrontation with a man asking for a room in his motel in Sheffield, Alabama.

A Kerala student, Neil Kumar, was shot dead at point-blank range in Alabama as assailants tried to rob him. Goldy leaves behind his mother, two sisters and a younger brother and was the sole provider for his family after his father’s death.

His family has urged the government to help bring his body back to India for cremation.