NEW YORK: The gunman who went on a killing spree inside a gurdwara in Wisconsin was a "white man with a 9/11 tattoo" on his arm, according to eyewitnesses.
Kanwardeep Singh Kaleka said those rescued from the Oak Creek, Milwaukee gurdwara described the attacker as a bald, white man, dressed in a white T-shirt and black pants and with a 9/11 tattoo on one arm -- which "implies to me that there's some level of hate crime there."
Kaleka, a nephew of the gurdwara's president, told CNN that the gunman started shooting in the parking lot and killed at least one person there. He "then entered into the temple and proceeded to open fire."
"It seems the few casualties that have been divulged to me have been the equivalent of priests, the holy leaders of our people," he said.
"My uncle is one of the administrators of the temple. It's mainly those individuals who have been targeted or shot. Maybe it's because the ladies were fortunate enough to dodge it out, but so far most of the people I've heard have been shot and killed were all turbaned males."
Kaleka said he was not at the temple at the time of the shooting, but helped police interview witnesses and other congregation members once they were rescued.
Meanwhile, FBI agents had cordoned off a street in Cudahy, a town about five miles from the gurdwara, where it was executing a search warrant related to the shooting.
A team of law enforcement officers, including from the Milwaukee County Sheriff's department and the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, surrounded a duplex in Cudahy.
Authorities cordoned off the area and the neighborhood was being evacuated.
Police have searched the suspect's home, "a short distance" from the temple, a law enforcement source told CNN who added that a single 9mm semi- automatic pistol believed to have been used by the gunman was found at the scene, along with a weapon that belonged to a police officer who was injured.
Some members of the community told local news channels that Sikhs had been targeted in hate crimes following the September 11 attacks.
They said people often falsely identify them as Muslims because of their bearded and turbaned appearance.
According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, there are around 314,000 Sikhs in the United States.
In April, representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York and co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Indians and Indian-Americans had sent a letter to attorney general Eric Holder urging that the FBI collect data on hate crimes committed against Sikhs.
NEW DELHI/CHANDIGARH/INDIA: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today expressed shock over the shooting at a gurdwara in the US and hoped authorities there will ensure "conditions" that such violent acts are not repeated, as the attack sparked an outrage in the country, especially in Punjab.
The Prime Minister said what was more painful was the fact that this "senseless act of violence" should be targeted at a religious place. An anguished Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal asked the Prime Minister to take up with the Obama administration the issue of safety and security of Sikhs living in the US while the Sikh religious leadership said the attack by a lone white gunman was a security lapse on the part of US government.
Condemning the attack, external affairs minister S M Krishna said it does not fit into the proclaimed policies of the US. Six people were killed in the attack on the gurudwara during Sunday morning prayers in Wisconsin by at least one gunman who was also shot dead. The Sikh community in Jammu staged a protest and sought adequate security for their members and religious institutions in the US. Reaching out to the Sikh community, US Ambassador to India Nancy Powell offered her prayers at Gurudwara Bangla Sahib in Delhi and said the incident will be probed thoroughly.
"We hope that the authorities will reach out to the grieving families and ensure conditions that such violent acts are not repeated in the future," Prime Minister Singh said in a statement.
Later talking to reporters, Singh said he was "enormously" saddened by the incident and hoped the "American authorities will investigate who were behind this dastardly attack". In a letter to the Prime Minister, chief minister Badal said "there is a growing feeling in the minds of Punjabis in general and Sikhs in particular that the Union government must get more actively and vigorously involved in getting the US administration address the issue of safety in right earnest." The US Embassy in a statement in Delhi said any incident like the attack on a Gurudwara one is tragic, especially when it happens in a place of worship.
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