CHANDIGARH: A 27-year-old Gurdeep Singh from Punjab, a resident of Queens, was shot by an unidentified individual at 10 pm (local time) on Friday in Brooklyn while delivering pizza.
The suspect fled the scene after the incident. When the police reached the spot, they found a man who was shot in the chest. Paramedics were called in, and they rushed the victim to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The police searched the neighbourhood for evidence till Saturday morning, but no arrests have been made so far, and an investigation into the matter is going on.
Meanwhile, CCTV footage obtained by local media shows two people fighting in the street, followed by a flash of light, assumed to be from gunshots. One person fell on the ground, and the other got in a car and drove off.
The deceased hails from Jabowal village in Kapurthala district in Punjab and was working as a delivery partner in New York City. He presently lived on a US work permit, and had not visited his family for the past nine years.
Singh had gone to the United States via the ‘dunki route’ in 2017, according to his family.
Singh’s father, Pyara Lal, said that his son had taken a heavy debt burden to travel to the US, but had faced challenges for a long time after reaching there.
Lal said that Singh had worked day and night to build a better life for his family. The ‘dunki route’ generally refers to illegal methods used by migrants to travel to developed countries like the United States.
The US-based North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) expressed grief and concern over the killing of Singh.
Executive Director of NAPA Satnam Singh Chahal said the incident should not be treated as an isolated case.
"Every time a young Punjabi or Sikh person is killed, a family is destroyed. We cannot allow repeated violence to become something the community simply learns to live with," Chahal said.
He urged the investigators to establish the exact motive behind the killing and cautioned against concluding before the probe is over.
The incident comes days after a 62-year-old Gujarati businessman, Suresh Parsottamdas Patel, who belonged to Aakhaj village in Gujarat, was shot dead inside his store in Jackson, Tennessee, by a masked assailant; his 19-year-old daughter witnessed her father being shot dead.
The alleged accused robbed cash from the drawer and then shot Patel, killing him on the spot. Patel, who had been living in the US for the past 30 years, had reportedly started a new business in Jackson City a week before the incident.