New York
Police in the New York suburbs have reported the capture of a group of illegal immigrants from Colombia who were terrorising the town by targeting residents of Indian descent. Indian-origin people have frequently been the subject of robberies across the US because they are thought to possess a lot of jewellery and are among the wealthiest and most educated ethnic groups, which frequently makes them the target of envious people.
The four-person gang would follow Indians to their houses in Hicksville and New Hyde Park while posing as public utility workers, according to authorities in Nassau County, Long Island's neighbour to New York City, on Wednesday.
"They would watch those going out of the Patel store or the jewellery store or getting their nails done," said Patrick Ryder, the commissioner of the Nassau Police Department, at a press conference. They rob them after following them to their home.
The four, who had been seen, were apprehended in New Hyde Park, another suburb, where they had followed a woman and then set their sights on a home.
They were apprehended by the police surveillance team after trying to run after the glass in a door smashed and a woman inside screamed, according to Ryder.
He claimed that they were hiding an AK-47 automatic rifle across from the residence.
Anita Ramolia, a neighbour, told WCBS TV that while walking her dog, she observed the police in action.
It scares me. I mean, I'm at home, and I think about it all the time," she said to the station.
Tejal Patel, a different neighbour, reported, "It happened around five in the morning, two blocks from my house. It's quite alarming," the station said.
According to police, who were quoted by the station, 20 to 30% of local instances with a similar pattern were probably connected to the four.
They had crossed the border into the US through Arizona, California, and Texas, according to officials.
At the news conference, the top election officer for Nassau County, a Republican, criticised the federal government's immigration policy.
According to County Executive Bruce Blakeman, "These people shouldn't have been permitted to enter the country in the first place. They were apprehended at the border, but instead of detaining them, they were released.
"The law has to be in place for these criminals," Mohammed Kashif of Hicksville told WCBS TV. To make them feel the agony, it needs to be a little stricter.
Recent hate crimes and killings in the US have targeted Indians.
The Economic Times newspaper in India reported that the situation is extremely concerning because there has recently been an increase in verbal and physical attacks on Indian Americans across the US. India has recently been shocked by reports of six killings, including one in the US that involved an eight-month-old baby.
A Mexican-American woman in Texas told four Indian American women in August that they were "ruining" America and should "go back to India," an incident that was caught on camera by one of the women and widely circulated.
In addition to the recent horrific murder of a family of four in California, the newspaper reported that Indian Americans have long had to deal with racial epithets, assaults, hate-crime robberies, and damage of their homes.
