The 70-year-old Sikh man is visiting from Punjab, India, and is staying at the Sikh Cultural Society, a well-known religious and cultural center in the South Richmond Hill section of Queens.
The incident, which police said was an unprovoked attack, is being investigated by the New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force.
“It was horrific and heartbreaking to see an elderly man in such bad shape,” Gurinder Singh, a Richmond Hill resident who saw the victim sitting outside the cultural center minutes after the attack, told CNN. “People come to America to get a better life, but then something like this happens.”
Police have not identified a suspect or a possible motive at this time.
Nirmal was transported by ambulance to an area hospital on Sunday, where doctors told him he had a broken nose, he said.
Community leaders suggest this was an act of racism
“This is happening too often in New York, where random people walk up to other people who don’t look like them and punch them,” said Harpreet Singh Toor, chairman of public policy and external affairs for the Sikh Cultural Society. “It’s something our community goes through, but right now there’s a sharp uptick.”
“We’ve seen our people get brutalized time and again for what they look like,” Aminta Kilawan-Narine, a community activist in South Queens, told CNN.
“Asian Americans, including South Asians, have been the subject of violence on our City’s streets and we will not tolerate this. What happened to Nirmal Singh should never have happened.”