Sushma seeks report on assault on Sikh boy in US

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday sought a report from the Indian embassy in the US over the attack on a Sikh boy at Kent in Washington State.

The incident follows  a hate-campaign against an Indian-origin American candidate in a local education board election at Edison in the state of New Jersey in the US.

"I have seen news reports about the beating of a Sikh boy in US. I have asked @IndianEmbassyUS to send me a report on the incident," Swaraj tweeted.

The 14-year-old was punched and knocked down by one of his classmates near his school at Kent last week.  

Another boy filmed the assault and recently posted it on a social media website.

Media reports indicated that the victim's father expressed apprehensions that the attack on his son  may have been racially motivated. The school authorities, however, said the assault followed a dispute between the two students in the classroom.

New Delhi also recently received reports about a hate campaign launched against Indian-American Falguni Patel, who is running for the election to  a local board of education.

"Chinese School! Indian School! Cricket Fields! Enough is Enough!" read the flyer in the anonymous mail received by the residents of Edison.

The campaign targeted Patel as well as another Chinese-American candidate, Jerry Shi. "Stop Jerry Shi & Falguni Patel from taking over our school board,"  the flyer said.

The word "deport" was stamped across the pictures of Jerry and Patel. The anonymous mail came with the blurb, which read "Make Edison Great Again" - a catchphrase apparently inspired by President Donald Trump's campaign pitch "Make America Great Again".  

Series of attacks

Indians and Indian-Americans were victims of a series of attacks in the US after the Trump Administration took office in January this year.  

Indian citizens Srinivas Kuchibhotla and his friend Alok Madasani, who worked for  a multinational company in Kansas, were shot at by a local resident, Adam Purinton, at a local bar on February 22.  The assailant  reportedly hurled racial slur at his victims.

Kuchibhotla was killed and Madasani was injured.  

Harnish Patel succumbed to injuries after he was shot by the police at Lancaster in South Carolina on March 2.

Deep Rai, who was shot at in Kent near Seattle in Washington State on March 4, was allegedly asked by the assailant to leave the US.  He, however, survived the attack.

Both Patel and Rai are American citizens with origins in India.