Wellington [New Zealand], Mar. 6 : An Indian origin man was assaulted in Auckland and subjected to a racist tirade during a road rage incident, according to local media reports.
According to Newshub, it's the second case the news service has been made aware of in just the past week and both were caught on camera.
According to a report by Newshub, it was 5 p.m. on a weekday and Narindervir Singh, the victim, started filming from inside his vehicle. The video was being streamed live onto Facebook. Singh said in the video: "I gave him a space ... that lady gave me the finger. He was driving that car [pointing to a white Holden] and now he's trying to threaten me, giving me bad names." After Singh informed the driver that he was uploading the video live, the situation escalated and he was abused, sworn at and told to go back to his own country.
"It really shocked me and after he [left], I was really shaken. I don't know what to do, it really hurts my heart ... The first thing in my mind was that he might hurt me with some weapon," Singh told Newshub. When Singh left, he assumed it was all over. But when he parked on a nearby side street, the white Holden pulled up once again and the racist rant continued.
Bikramjit Singh, a New Zealand citizen, suffered similar abuse last week as he left a Papatoetoe storage facility.
A man, who claimed Bikramjit was speeding yelled at him, saying: "Go back to your f*****g country - slow down! You know what the speed limit is here." The man who hurled abuse in that case ended up apologising in an email, blaming two alcohol beverages he'd consumed earlier that day.
But those who work with migrants say such discrimination does appear to be increasing. The incidents come close on the heels of recent incidents of apparent hate crime against Indians in the U.S.
Last week, a 39-year old Sikh man was shot at by an unknown assailant outside his home in south Seattle and allegedly shouted "go back to your own country." Last month in Kansas, a 32-year old Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed by 51-year old US Navy veteran Adam Purinton.
Earlier last week, Indian-origin convenience store owner Harnish Patel, 43, of Lancaster in South Carolina was found dead of gunshot wounds in his yard.
Source: ANI
