Police are investigating the death of a 68-year-old Sikh man found in a canal Monday morning in Fresno, California.
Subag Singh, 68, was found dead in a canal after he went missing in the morning of June 23. His body had injuries.
California law enforcement officials from Fresno county have said that they were trying to find out who was responsible for the killing of the elderly Sikh American.
“Deputies found his body with visible trauma in a canal on McCall and Jensen. Investigators are trying to piece together what led up to the body being found in a canal,” Fox26 said in a report.
Deputies are not saying if this was a hate crime or not, but members of the Sikh community say this would not be the first, it said.
Deep Singh, executive director of the Jakara Movement, a national Sikh youth organizing and advocacy nonprofit founded in Fresno, told NBC News it was too early to tell whether Subag Singh’s death was a crime motivated by hate.
“I tend to be on the cautious side of these things,” he said.
“But at the same time there have been a number of hate crimes against Sikhs in the region,” Deep Singh added.
In Fresno, a city with a large Sikh population roughly 200 miles northwest of Los Angeles, Deep Singh said there is a sense of apprehension when it comes to the elder members of their community, like their grandparents.
“There’s a higher proportion in that population that would carry the visual iconographic symbols of the Sikh faith (beard and turban),” he said. “I think, secondly, should something happen, they would have very few tools. They oftentimes don’t speak English well. And just physically, it’s easier to assault one.”
But Singh emphasized that fear doesn’t pervade Fresno’s Sikh community.
“If anything, there just becomes a sense of anger, especially amongst the younger generation,” he said.
