No robbery, no confrontation, just murder.
AB Wire
Was Davinder Singh, 47, a Sikh gas station owner from Iselin, Newark, New Jersey, who was shot dead Monday afternoon, on Memorial Day, because of the turban he wore and his religion? His family thinks so.
NO Advance Media reported police responded to a report of a shooting found Singh at Power Gas Station in the 400 block of West Market Street around 4:20 p.m.Singh, who owned the station, was pronounced dead less than a half hour later at University Hospital, said Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Fennelly.
NBC News reported Singh’s son, Jatinder Singh, said that he thought his father, who had moved to the United States from India 25 years ago, may have been targeted because he was Sikh and wore a turban.
“There was no robbery, no struggle, no confrontation,” he said. “I don’t know what else it could be other than a hate crime.”
Jatinder Singh told NBC 4 New York that his father was “the best man I ever knew” and that the family had worried about him working in Newark.
The son said the 47-year-old had been robbed before but had always fought back. But on Monday afternoon, he didn’t even have a chance.
“My dad came out to get some fresh air and the male came up to my dad, pointed a gun and shot him point-blank,” he said.
Detectives from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Major Crimes Task Force are investigating the shooting. They didn’t comment as to whether the case is being investigated as a hate crime.