10 years after Sikh murder over 9/11, community continues to blend in and stand

[Grenade Singh]

10 years after Sikh murder over 9/11, community continues to blend in and stand out
By Jose G. Santos, CNN

Video: http://cnn.com/video/?/video/living/2011/09/14/sacred-space-sikh-temple.cnn

Fairfax Station, Virginia (CNN)– Ten years ago, Balbir Singh Sodhi was gunned down, apparently because he looked Muslim or Arab.

He was neither.

Sodhi was a Sikh. Members of the religious tradition say he was the first person to be murdered in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks.

That claim has been backed up by the Justice Department.

"The first person killed in post-9/11 violence, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was a Sikh, shot while pumping gas at his gas station in Arizona four days after 9/11," said Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez in congressional testimony earlier this year.

Sodhi’s killer, 45-year-old aircraft mechanic Frank Roque, gunned down the bearded, turban-wearing Indian immigrant outside the gas station Sodhi owned in Mesa, Arizona. Roque drove up to the station, fired a handgun  at Sodhi five times, then fled.

Roque would go on to shoot at a Lebanese-American gas station clerk and fire into the home of an Afghan-American family later that same day.

In 2003, Roque was sentenced to death for Sodhi's murder. On appeal, his sentence was reduced to life in prison.


Full article: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/15/10-years-after-sikh-murder-over-911-community-continues-to-blend-in-and-stand-out/
Ignore the comments, too much religious zealotry there.