NYC Mob Attacks Sikh Professor, Thinking He’s Muslim

A Columbia University professor was badly beaten in New York City by a mob that thought he was Muslim. The professor is actually a Sikh, a peaceful religion little-known and little-understood, especially by ignorant hoodlums. Sikhs wear turbans and often have long beards.

Police say Prabjot Singh, a 31-year-old Sikh, was attacked just blocks from his home by a group of more than 20 young men on bikes who called him a terrorist and shouted “Get Osama!” Singh, who was saved when passersby intervened, was left with injuries including a fractured jaw, reports the Columbia Spectator.

Friend Simran Jeet Singh describes the attack in the Huffington Post, noting that the professor had been taking an evening walk after dropping his wife and 1-year-old at home.

“He couldn’t speak because many of his teeth had been displaced, but he waved limply to let us know that he was OK,” he writes of seeing Singh at the hospital. “It’s incredibly sad,” Singh himself tells the New York Daily News. “It’s not the neighborhood I know. I work in this community. It’s just not American.”

By: Cheston Catalano

Cheston Catalano is a Kentucky-based journalist whose work has been featured in the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle. He is a long-time contributor to Liberaland.