Days after an Indian engineer was shot dead in the United States’ Kansas city, a store owner of Indian origin was found dead outside his residence in South Carolina, PTI reported. Harnish Patel, 43, owned a convenience store in Lancaster County. Sheriff Barry Faile said she had no reasons to believe that the incident was “racially motivated”.
On Thursday night, Patel shut his shop around 11.30 pm and drove his minivan to his home – about 6 km away from the store. He is believed to have been confronted by his killer when he reached home and got out of the vehicle, investigators told AP.
Lancaster County police received calls from people saying they had heard screaming and gunshots near White Oak Manor, a nursing centre, AP added. When the police arrived at the spot, they found Patel dead. Investigators said he had gunshot wounds, IANS reported quoting WBTV. The police also found two shell casings at the crime scene. Patel is survived by his wife and a child in elementary school.
The incident comes only days after Srinivas Kuchibhotla was murdered in a hate crime in Kansas city on February 23 by Navy veteran Adam Purinton. His friend Alok Madasani and an American, Ian Grillot, were also shot at by Purinton. Eyewitnesses at Austin’s Bar and Grill had heard Purinton shout “Get out of my country” before he opened fire at the men, who he thought were Arabs. On March 1, the White House condemned the incident and said that it was an “act of racially motivated hatred”.
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