Piara Singh was beaten brutally with an iron bar outside the Gurdwara in Fresno which is located in the heart of the Central Valley of California that has a sizable Sikh/Punjabi population.
Still unconscious, Singh has 20 stitches, broken bones and ribs. His condition is reported to be improving.
The individual arrested for the Sunday's suspected hate crime has been identified as Gilbert Garcia, the Fresno Police chief Jerry Dyer told a gathering of Sikhs at the Gurdwara where the victim worked as a volunteer.
"This is a hate crime," said Gurdev Singh Muhar, a priest of the Fresno Gurdwara.
The incident has sent shock waves not only among the Sikh community in the US, but also among Hindu-Americans and Arab-Americans, who for long have been demanding that attack against them be registered by the FBI as hate crime.
In a statement, the Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, condemned the brutal attack on the elderly Sikh man.