A 32-year-old Sikh man has been stabbed to death by an unidentified person allegedly over cigarettes outside a grocery store in California, the third Indian-origin victim to be killed in a week in the US state.
Jagjeet Singh, who was a clerk at the Hatch Food and Gas convenience store, came to the US 18 months ago and stayed with his sister and brother-in-law in Modesto.
Singh, who hailed from Punjab’s Kapurthala city, reportedly had an altercation with one of the customers who came to buy cigarettes on Friday.
Another clerk at the store Sukhwinder Singh, describing the events that led to the fatal encounter, said the outburst began apparently over being asked for an ID and Jagjeet had refused to sell cigarettes to the unidentified person as he did not show any proper ID..
The man then reportedly left the store in a hurry, mouthing racist abuses and warning Jagjeet of dire consequences. The entire sequence was captured by a CCTV camera installed in the store premises.
The customer then returned angry, 30 minutes later, and took Jagjeet’s life when he was about to close the store, Singh said.
Jagjeet was soon rushed to the hospital where he struggled for his life for nine hours before finally succumbing to his injuries, the report said.
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