US lawmaker Raja Krishnamoorthi escaped a potential mass shooting at an Aurora temple during Navratri. A 19-year-old suspect planned to kill Indians, but his rifle jammed. Krishnamoorthi said, "This rhetoric online is now translating into violence." He blamed extremist hate and urged the government to release security funds for religious institutions.
Krishnamoorthi noted that "thankfully", Paporakis's weapon jammed.
New Delhi:
It was a sunny Sunday, and the start of Navratri -- the Hindu festival that honours Shakti, the divine feminine power in her nine forms -- and Subramanian Raja Krishnamoorthi, the US representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district, was at Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple in Aurora with his family for his morning prayers. Little did he know that a 19-year-old "white supremacist" was waiting outside with sinister intent to commit a mass shooting to "kill Indians".
Police later said that Alexandros Paporakis' bloody plans were thwarted after his weapon, an AR-15 rifle, jammed and he had to flee the area before anyone could spot him. The suspect was arrested later that day, after a co-worker, with whom Paporakis shared these intentions, reported him.
Talking to NDTV, Krishnamoorthi said thousands of people were visiting the temple because it was the start of Navratri. He blamed the "anti-India, anti-Indian American, anti-South Asian hate" that is proliferating in the United States for Paporakis' alleged actions.
"It is fuelled by extremist rhetoric online. You see this in Texas. You see this in Florida, where a Florida elected official called for me to be deported and said, "Take your curry and go home." This is going on all over the place," the Democratic lawmaker said.
"Even the Trump administration is fanning the flames. They actually posted a tweet directed at Sikh Americans saying, "Mr Singh, self-deport or else". One week later, a gentleman named Singh, a Sikh truck driver, was stabbed 17 times, coming within inches of his life. So this rhetoric online is now translating into violence. And it's got to stop now," he added.
Krishnamoorthi noted that there's already a programme called the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP), which is meant to help bolster the security of temples and synagogues and mosques and churches throughout America. However, he accused the Trump administration of holding up that money for political purposes.
'It's wrong. And that money needs to be released now so that temples ...[and] numerous other institutions can take the steps to mitigate risk. This is extremely important. God forbid that another attack happens, and it happens to a religious institution that doesn't have any protection, and we could have stopped it," he said.
He also criticised US gun laws, saying it was "very important that we stop this proliferation of firearms, which allow people to act upon their violent intent in ways that make their actions extremely lethal."
During raids at Paporakis's house, police recovered a bag containing an AR-style rifle without a serial number along with, a tactical vest, eight loaded magazines, a loaded extended magazine, 300 rounds of rifle ammunition, various items depicting Nazi symbolism, including swastikas, and a gas can labelled "Jeet Remover."
Krishnamoorthi noted that "thankfully", Paporakis's weapon, which is a form of a semi-automatic weapon, jammed. "But the fact that he even had access to the AR-15 and 300 rounds of ammunition is unacceptable."
The Democrat also termed the close call an "intel failure". He accused the FBI, under the Trump administration, of not focusing on domestic violent extremism.
"They focused most of their resources on other priorities, such as immigration. And now we are starting to see that some of these plots are going undetected. The longer that we take our focus off of this big priority, which is domestic violent extremism, the more likely it is that people are going to get hurt, whether they are Indian Americans, or whether they are Jews, or Muslims, or Sikhs, or any minority that might be targeted by white supremacists right now," Krishnamoorthi said.
He also accused President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) followers of "weaponising" the anti-Indian sentiment as a political tool.
"You see this in Texas, where it's actually being used in political races to help MAGA candidates win. You see it in other places. I hope that my friends on the other side, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle... will stand shoulder to shoulder against this hate. It has no place in America. And we have got to fight it with everything we got."
The US lawmaker also believes that big tech leaders should police their social media platforms to prevent this type of violent hate from proliferating. "When you see that kind of explosion in hate online, then you see people like this guy, Alexandros Paporakis, and other young people get radicalised. And once they get radicalised, then they take the actions that we just talked about. And so I would just say that big tech has a big role to play in policing their platforms, and we're going to call for that as well," he said.
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