Sikh Says He Was Mistaken for Arab, Beaten

By Ron Howell | STAFF WRITER

September 16, 2001

A 66-year-old man from India, who follows the Sikh religion and wears a turban, was beaten Tuesday by men who mistook him for an Arab and blamed him for Tuesday's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the man and his relatives say.

"They were abusing him and shouting at him, that he was Arabic and Muslim," said Attinder Jeet Singh, 40, the man's son.

Attar Singh, the victim, and his family are Sikhs from India. Sikh men wear turbans and beards. Many people assume they are Muslims. They are not.

"He was coming from temple, where they prayed for what happened at the World Trade Center," Attinder Jeet Singh said of his father. Several men, described as white and perhaps in their late teens, got out of their cars and set upon him, beating him up just yards away from the Sikh Cultural Society at 95-30 118th St., Attinder Jeet Singh said.

Attar Singh said he was rescued by police from the 102nd Precinct, who took him to an area hospital, where he was X-rayed and released.

"They beat me for about eight or 10 minutes," Attar Singh said.

He said he is in New York on a tourist visa visiting his son, who lives in Richmond Hill and has a clothing and jewelry shop called Jessi Emporium in Jackson Heights.

The family said three young men were arrested by police in the Tuesday night assault, but police have not been available for routine media inquiries since the World Trade Center attacks, and the arrests could not be confirmed.

Police officers have been posted for the past few days near the temple, or gurdwara, where Attar Singh and his family go regularly to pray.

Other Sikhs have told Newsday they, too, are afraid in the aftermath of the air attacks on the World Trade Center, which killed thousands.

"We feel under siege," said Mankalwal Singh, a Wall Street computer programmer who said he witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings on Tuesday.

"Many Sikh-Americans like me would die for this country."

Cab driver Jejiemder Singh, another Sikh New Yorker, said people threw bottles at his car on Tuesday.

"My wife doesn't want me to go to work," he said.

"Ironically," he added, "if you see a New Yorker with a turban, the one thing he definitely isn't is a Muslim."

Staff writer Rocco Parascandola and freelance writer Peter McDermott contributed to this story.