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General Forum: Society | | Indians in US ....news update | |
| Indian tortured, stabbed in Boston
June 26, 2003 16:02 IST
In a gruesome incident of hate crime against expatriates, an Indian graduate student was robbed, beaten, burned with cigarettes, stuffed in a trunk, stabbed and dumped in the middle of road by four men after he made a food delivery to them in Boston.
Saurabh Bhalerao, 24, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts in North Dartmouth, and working for Sarducci's Subs and Pizza, was said to be recovering after undergoing emergency surgery at Rhode Island Hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said.
"It's probably one of the most vicious robberies I have ever seen, but it's not unheard of," Fairhaven Police Chief Gary F Souza was quoted as saying by a city daily.
According to the police, Bhalerao hails from Indore in Madhya Pradesh and delivered a pizza at a Weld Street apartment on Sunday night, where four men attacked him.
The men originally intended to rob Bhalerao, but intensified their assault thinking he was Muslim, continuing to beat him even as he tried to explain that he was Hindu, Souza said.
"He pleaded with his attackers... They were telling him he should go back to Iraq," the police officer said. In addition to the beatings, the suspects burned Bhalerao's face and ears with a lit cigarette.
They then hog-tied the deliveryman and stuffed clothes in his mouth to prevent him from calling out for help. The attackers then beat and kicked Bhalerao, breaking the bones in his face, he said.
They then forced Bhalerao into the trunk of his own car and drove towards Fort Phoenix in Fairhaven, Souza said.
However, the wounded student managed to loosen the ropes and get out of the trunk. When the attackers confronted him, Bhalerao swung a hammer he had got from the trunk at one of the attackers. They stabbed him three times in return before running away, the police said.
Bhalerao, lying on the street, was helped by two teenage girls driving on the road who called the police.
Police have arrested three of the attackers and framed one of them.
The crime was a violent attack on a peaceful man, said Madhu Jhaveri, the adviser to Indian Students Association at UMass in Dartmouth. Bhalerao had been president of the association for 18 months.
A pretrial hearing of the case is scheduled for July 23.
Posted by: Mr. Siri Siri At: 26, Jun 2003 3:01:55 PM IST
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