Bharat Rakshak

Lilo wrote:This one goes in depth.
Oak Creek Sikh temple shooter had military background, white supremacist ties

By Mark Hughes, New York
8:06AM BST 07 Aug 2012
Sadwant Singh Kaleka, 65, the head of the Wisconsin temple's unequal battle did not last long before he was gunned down by the racist killer but his heroism has been praised for giving vital time for other Sikhs to flee or hide.

Mr Kaleka tried to stab Wade Michael Page, the white supremacist gunman before being shot twice and dieing of his injuries during the Sunday morning attack on the Sikh temple he had dedicated his life to.

Amardeep Kaleka son of Sadwant Singh Kaleka, the president of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin (AP)

Amardeep Singh Kaleka, his son, said on Monday at vigil outside the temple, that FBI agents had embraced him after the attack, in which six people were mudered by Wade, shook his hand and said, "Your dad's a hero".

"Whatever time he spent in that struggle gave the women time to get cover," said Kaleka said.

"He was a hero through and through. There couldn't have been a better place for him to lay to rest."

One of the women who had time to flee was Amardeep's mother, who called the police using her mobile phone while hiding from the gunman in cupboard.

Relatives said Mr Kaleka was widely regarded as the founder of the Oak Creek temple that was attacked by Page, a disgraced former US army soldier and racist, who is widely thought to mistaken bearded and turban-wearing Sikhs for Muslims.

Mr Kaleka's resistance slowed the attacker just long enough for the women preparing the temple's traditional post-worship afternoon meal to hide in a pantry and for the children attending Sunday school downstairs to escape the massacre.

The gunman had already shot at least one person in the temple's car park. He then went on to kill six Sikh worshippers - including Sadwant Singh Kaleka - before going back outside to ambush the police when he heard approaching sirens.

He was then "put down" in a gunfight after severely wounding one police officer.

Mr Kaleka and his family came to the United States from India in 1982. He built a successful business, and devoted every extra dollar he earned into building the Oak Creek temple.

Parishioners described him as the kind of man who, if you called him at two in the morning to say a light had gone out at the temple, would be there at 2:15 am to change the bulb.

"As I saw the picture of the man who took away my father's life - you look at his face and it's full of hollow emptiness - a dark void," Amandeep Kaleka said after police released the photo of Wade.

"I feel a lot of sadness towards that individual. I'm not going to replace it with anger."

In stark contrast, Page, 40, was a disgraced soldier, in the army from 1992 to 1998, before being discharged for a "pattern" of misconduct including drunkenness and going Awol

Pictures show him heavily tattooed. Neighbours said that he had a tattoo commemorating the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on his right arm, a common indicator of far-Right and anti-Muslim affiliations.

On Monday, the police said that they were seeking a second "person of interest". Officers want to speak to a man who was seen filming groups of Sikhs outside the temple after the attack. The man was captured on film by local news media and he too has a "9/11/01" tattoo on his upper right arm.

Mourners cry outside the scene of a mass shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin (Reuters)

Wade shot dead six people and injured three others, including a police officer, before he was shot dead by armed police.

Officially no motive has been disclosed, but yesterday it emerged that Page, whose name was released by US Attorney James A. Santelle, is a former army officer who fronted a neo-Nazi white supremacist band.

Page's band was called End Apathy and had recently given an interview to a local record label website in which he spoke about his "frustration that we have the potential to accomplish so much more as individuals and a society in whole [sic]."

Page's rampage comes just two weeks after James Holmes murdered 12 people and injured 51 others after opening fire in a cinema in Aurora, Colorado during a screening of new Batman film The Dark Knight Rises.

It was reported that he had purchased the 9mm handgun used in the rampage legally from a store in Wisconsin.

Philip wrote: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... thers.html

On Monday, the police said that they were seeking a second "person of interest". Officers want to speak to a man who was seen filming groups of Sikhs outside the temple after the attack. The man was captured on film by local news media and he too has a "9/11/01" tattoo on his upper right arm.

shiv wrote:A forensic examination of the bullets fired, casings, sites of injuries should conclusively prove if more than one gunman was involved. Generally this sort of deductive work is trivial and will not be missed in Yamrika. If they say one gunman, then its one gunman.

shiv wrote:A forensic examination of the bullets fired, casings, sites of injuries should conclusively prove if more than one gunman was involved. Generally this sort of deductive work is trivial and will not be missed in Yamrika. If they say one gunman, then its one gunman.

Aditya_V wrote:
Now doc ji puts his faith in the American system.

Anindya wrote:

Sikhs were probably in North America long before any other Indians were allowed in.

This is not strictly true - East Indians were brought to US shores starting as long back as 375 years ago - initially as slaves.

kshatriya wrote:
When the news of the shootout broke out, CNN's breaking news had something like
"Shooting at Gurudwara.......

Sikhism was formed from Hinduism rejecting its caste system and Hindu scriptures" -Not sure how many people caught it. It was completely unnecessary.

In North America I've seen billboards about 1984 and money being collected for 1984.. Not sure really where it ends up

shiv wrote:Nothing will actually change and conspiracy theories will only take the focus away from existing issues that are serious enough.

VikasRaina wrote:Is the insinuation that somehow Govt agencies were involved in this hence they are trying to save the 2nd gunman ?

On Christmas Day 2009, Abdulmutallab traveled from Ghana to Amsterdam, where he boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 en route to Detroit. He had purchased his ticket with cash in Ghana on December 16.[117] Eyewitnesses Kurt Haskell and Lori Haskell told the Detroit News that prior to boarding the plane they witnessed a "smartly dressed man" possibly of Indian descent, around 50 years old, and who spoke "in an American accent similar to my own." helping Abdulmutallab onto the plane.[118][119] They also testify that the ticket agent refused to allow Abdulmutallab on the plane because he did not have his own passport.[120] These circumstances underlie some of the passengers' speculations that the U.S. government supplied a defective device to the perpetrator and a man in a tan suit with an American accent intervened, the matter was referred to a manager, and Abdulmutallab was then able to board the plane, presumably still without a passport.[121]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Farouk_Abdulmutallab

The elephant in the room is of course the 9/11 attack itself, which was certainly staged, as is well known to any moderately well informed observer

pentaiah wrote:I was wondering if the WW II veterans had this much PTSD and indulged in crimes like this.
Sorry for OT

ramana wrote:Pranav,
Can we give those theories a rest in this thread please? You have a whole thread in GDF for that.

Thnaks, ramana

Surya wrote:over the last decade the US army has really scrapped the bottom of the barrel for its recruits and this is one of the results

matrimc wrote:

pentaiah wrote:I was wondering if the WW II veterans had this much PTSD and indulged in crimes like this.
Sorry for OT

Slight OT, but was talking to a doctor on that day. She opined that WWII veterans are quite at peace. Most of the PTSD cases that come to her are Vietnam veterans.

KJoishy wrote: Yes, I read somewhere that the first Sikhs came in 1780s or so to work in fields in CA and inter married with the local Mexican women. I wonder what their descendents look like now.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called India’s foreign minister Monday after he criticized the United States for failing to protect religious minorities in the wake of Sunday’s massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.Clinton called S.M. Krishna while in South Africa, a State Department spokesman said at a press briefing yesterday. In New Delhi, the American ambassador met with Sikh leaders to express her condolences and visited the city’s largest Sikh temple. In Washington, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman met with India’s ambassador to the U.S. to express her condolences.have seen messages of condolence from President [Barack] Obama and others,” Krishna said, according to The Associated Press. “They’ve emphasized protection of all faiths. The U.S. government will have to take a comprehensive look at this kind of tendency which certainly is not going to bring credit to the United States of America.”
he chief minister of Punjab province, where Sikhism was founded, sent a letter to India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, asking him to pressure the federal government to do more to protect American Sikhs.There is a growing feeling in the minds of the people of Punjabis in general and Sikhs in particular that the Government of India must get more actively and vigorously involved in getting the U.S. administration to address this issue in right earnest,” Parkash SinghBadal, the chief minister, wrote in his letter, according to a Punjabi news site.“There is also a strong feeling among the Sikhs masses about the need for a comprehensive awareness campaign by the U.S. government about the identity and highly constructive role of the Sikh community in that country. Such an initiative should have been taken immediately after violent attacks against members of the Sikh community in the wake of 9/11.”

matrimc wrote:

pentaiah wrote:I was wondering if the WW II veterans had this much PTSD and indulged in crimes like this.
Sorry for OT

Slight OT, but was talking to a doctor on that day. She opined that WWII veterans are quite at peace. Most of the PTSD cases that come to her are Vietnam veterans. Veterans of the latest wars probably are in the pipeline and will surface in large numbers in a few years.
habal (raju?) is at it again, I see

Mort Walker wrote:Victor,

That is correct. The first Indian origin congressman to be elected was Dalip Singh Saund in 1957 from California. He was a Sikh born in Delhi, but shorn of hair. He had a stroke in 1962 that kept him from running again.

Carl wrote:

BobbyP wrote:Over the last 25 years or so, I have noticed that the Sikh community in North America has socially withdrawn from the other Indian communities, at least in large cities and towns where Sikhs have sizable populations. I would like to urge all our Sikh brothers to come back and join the rest of us Indians back to form one strong and powerful community.

Well then "other Indian communities" should also step forward in this time of tragedy and come out in support of estranged Sikhs. The Council of Hindu Temples of NA and other Indic orgs should come out and condemn the incident, and other Indians in the neighborhood could come out to support the bereaved, and demonstrate solidarity in front of the media.

Ever since I came to the US I've been a regular at Gurudwaras, and always felt welcome. Yes, at times I do run into the Khalistan types, but even with them I have a heart-to-heart pretty quickly. A lot of their grievance is purely human - without any Pakiness about being TFTA versus SDRE, as is sometimes portrayed. One Sikh professor I knew organized a program on campus with videos of the 1984 riots, etc. I (accompanied by another Indian Sikh friend and a Hare Krishna brahmachari!) were in the audience and during question time we asked what was the need to have such a conference in front of some suspicious looking Americans. Did they think that we didn't feel for the widows of that ugly riot, or that we are Indira Gandhis supporters? The professor (and some younger US-born Sikhs) answered that they constantly felt insulted, humiliated and patronized by Hindus, for quite some time. They quotes folks like Swami Dayananda, and even Gandhi, who supposedly opined that Punjabi was an uncivilized language, and that meat-eating in Sikhism makes them less dharmic. Also, the Hindu-Sikh politics during British rule is well-known, and Punjabi identity itself has been under attack, with Hindus choosing Hindi and Moslems choosing Urdu, and Sikhs being the sole repository of Punjabi culture. So in many ways they have grievances, and the Briturds added their own Macauliff mischief.

So its just another slap when, in a time of tragedy, other Indians sit and sanctimoniously preach to Sikhs that this is their karmic retribution for becoming estranged from the rest of us. These are not the instinctive reactions of people connected by the womb. Instead, it may help to show some warmth, some fellow-feeling and outrage at what has happened.

ramana wrote:AJC.org spokeman David Harris, mentioned all the six dead by name and shared the grief in the Osgood radio show.

I have not yet seen one Indian origin publication which names all the people.

ramana wrote:BobbyP, I knew your heart is good. I needed to shock you to let it overrule the mind.