US man charged with hate crime for assaulting, abusing Indian

Washington, March 18 : An American man has been charged with hate crime for assaulting an Indian-origin man and hurling racial slurs, mistaking him for a Muslim. Jeffrey Allen Burgess, 54, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, has been accused of intentionally harming a man named Ankur Mehta on November 22 because of his “perceived race, colour and national origin”.A federal grand jury yesterday indicted Burgess of a hate crime charge in connection with the alleged assault at a Red Robin restaurant in South Hills Village, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported.Acting Assistant Attorney General Tom Wheeler of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and acting US Attorney Soo C Song for the Western District of Pennsylvania announced the indictment. At the time of the incident, police said, Burgess was sitting next to Mehta inside the Red Robin restaurant when he began insulting him and then repeatedly elbowed him in the head.”I don’t want you sitting next to me…you people,” Burgess was quoted as saying by witnesses in addition to his anti-Muslim racial slurs, according to a criminal complaint filed by Bethel Park police.