The fire set outside the building burned out itself without causing much damage.
Indian American family in Indianapolis is the latest victim of racist attack on immigrant community as their business was vandalized by miscreants, reported wthr.com.
According to the report, a small business owned by Indian American Rajesh Patnaik and his wife was marred with hate messages by the vandals on Sunday.
The family along with neighbors are cleaning the spray paint used for writing the hate message on the walls.
The report also says that the back door of the business was set ablaze by the miscreants. Patnaik, speaking to reporters, told that this is an act of vandalism and hate crime.
“It is shocking, it hurts,†Patnaik said to wthr.com. “I’ve never seen anything like this before and I’ve lived in the U.S. for a little over nine years.â€
Patnaik, on arriving at the business on Monday, found that the walls, windows, and doors of his business were spray-painted with words abusing Hindu gods, calling Indians traitors and Satanists.
The fire set outside the building burned out itself without causing much damage.
“The person probably knows something, maybe something superficially, about Hinduism and they probably don’t like the fact that I am practicing Hinduism,†Patnaik said.
According to neighbors of Patnaik, he is a friendly guy with a helpful mind and there is no reason why somebody should have such hatred on him or his small business.
“It’s just hate,†Steve Carnal said to wthr.com.. “People don’t understand his religion. They don’t understand these people. He’s done nothing to hurt anybody.â€
“It makes me sad, how little people can be, that their minds are so small,†she Inna Prikhodko who is originally from Russia.
Patnaik said that he is not intimidated by the attack but it will take some time for him to get over the shock. He seems to believe that the vandals were people who didn’t understand other religious faiths and probably they have difficulties in coexisting.
It has to be noted that Indiana is only five states in the US that doesn’t have legislation against hate crimes. The laws against hate crimes increases the punishments for crimes motivated by race, sex, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation.
The state tried to pass a hate crime law in last February but failed after opponents contented that hate crime laws treat victims of similar crimes differently.
The other four states that doesn’t have a hate crime law are Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, and Wyoming