Parking lot attack on Hindu priest in North Jersey investigated as hate crime, report says

The alleged parking lot beating of a Hindu priest from Mahwah earlier this month is under investigation by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office as potential hate crime, according to a report.

Devendra Shukla, 43, who lives in the Hindu Samaj Temple, said he was driving his car through the parking lot of the Interstate Shopping Center on April 3 when a man, later identified as Nicholas Dow, 30, of Ramsey, came up to his car and punched him in the face, according to a report by WNYC.

A report filed with the Ramsey Police said Shukla was “visibly upset, crying” and had a bleeding cut on his lip, WNYC reported.

He also filed a report with the Mahwah Police and told him that the man who beat him called him a “dirty Indian" and that his 6-year-old daughter crouched in the back of his car and screamed as he “was attacked and is totally traumatized by the incident,” according to WNYC.

Read more: https://www.nj.com/news/2019/04/parking-lot-attack-on-hindu-priest-in-north-jersey-investigated-as-hate-crime-report-says.html