Asian Women attacked in San Diego
Jenifer Hanrahan UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER October 5, 2001
Swaran Kaur Bhullar's car was idling at a red light on Miramar Road when two men on a motorcycle pulled up beside her, yanked open her door and shouted, "This is what you get for what you've done to us!"
And then, "I'm going to slash your throat!"
Bhullar raised her elbows to protect her neck and hunched over. She was stabbed in the head at least twice before the men, hearing a car approach, sped off.
Bhullar, a Sikh who lives in coastal North County, is the first person injured in a suspected hate crime in San Diego County in the aftermath of Sept. 11, San Diego police said.
"If that car hadn't driven up, I might have died," said Bhullar, 51, a mother of three grown children. "They could have cut me and left me there and there is nothing I could have done."
Americans of Middle Eastern, Indian and East African descent have become targets of a wave of violence and harassment nationwide.
The attack on Bhullar is the latest of 36 suspected hate crimes being investigated by San Diego police, said police spokesman Dave Cohen. The incidents include threatening phone calls, nasty notes left on windshields, graffiti and vandalism.
Three cases involve crudely made explosive devices designed to spew BBs. The devices were not detonated.
Bhullar was attacked about 3:20 p.m. Sunday at Miramar Road and Cabot Drive as she headed to her family's video rental store.
Bhullar did not see the weapon, but she felt the pain. Blood and tears streamed down her checks after the men fled. At Sharp Memorial Hospital in Kearny Mesa, emergency room doctors treated two cuts in her scalp. She was released later that day.
Since the terrorist attacks, Sikh men in particular have been singled out because they wear turbans and beards. A Sikh man was shot and killed at a gas station in Mesa, Ariz., a few days after the hijackings.
The violence has prompted Sikh gurdwaras, or temples, across the nation to band together to educate the public about their religion, said Gagandeep Kaur, vice president of communications for Gurdwara San Diego in Poway.
"Every minute is crucial to us at this time," she said. "Every minute we waste is another person harassed or another life lost."
Sikhism has nothing to do with Islam. Sikhism originated in northern India and Pakistan in the 15th century and is one of the youngest of the world's monotheistic religions.
Sikhs reject India's caste system. To show that all people are created equal, all Sikh men have the last name "Singh"; women have the last name "Kaur." Devout Sikh men and women never cut their hair.
Bhullar is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Kenya. She came to San Diego 15 years ago because she believed this country was safer than Africa. Now she is terrified to go outside.
"I just want to be in my own home, safe," she said. "And I want to remind Sikhs and anyone who is brown to keep their car doors locked."