Police has arrested a person suspected of an alleged hate crime against an elderly Sikh man, who remains in hospital in serious condition two days after he was brutally beaten with an iron rod while leaving a Gurdwara on Sunday.
The individual arrested for the suspected hate crime has been identified as Gilbert Garcia, a spokesman of the City of Fresno Police Department told PTI, soon after the arrest was made. No further details were immediately available.
"It is being considered as a suspected case of hate crime," the Fresno Police official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to reveal the details till a formal announcement was made by the City Policy Chief Jerry Dyer.
Fresno is located in the heart of the Central Valley of California and has a sizeable Sikh/Punjabi population.
The incident has sent shock waves not only among the entire Sikh community in the United States, but also among the Hindu-Americans and Arab-Americans, who for long have been demanding that attack against them be registered by the FBI as hate crime.
According to the Sikh community members and local media reports, 82-year-old Plara Singh was beaten brutally with an iron bar on his way out of a Gurdwara on Sunday morning. Still unconscious, he has 20 stitches, broken bones, and ribs.
Meanwhile, 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.
"We stand with the Sikh community in rejecting the religious and ethnic hatred that leads to such brutal and cowardly attacks," said CAIR-SV executive director Basim Elkarra.
Condemning the incident, the North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) said Plara Singh was a volunteer at the Gurdwara and performs daily chores there.
