Store worker charged with murder of Sikh business-owner in US

Authorities have arrested a man who had worked at a store in the city's suburb of East Orange and charged him with the murder of Tarlok Singh, the Sikh who owned the shop, according to the local prosecutor's office.

The Essex County prosecutor's office announced the arrest of Roberto Ubiera, 55, on Tuesday.

Singh, 55, was found dead with stab wounds on Friday morning inside his store, Park Deli and Grocery, in the New Jersey town.

NJ Advance Media quoted officials as saying that Ubeiro had done odd jobs at the store.

Ubiera is in custody and is to be produced in court on Thursday.

The killing of Singh was the third attack on Sikhs in three weeks in the US that sent shockwaves through the community.

Only two them have been solved so far.

Ubeiro is a Latino. A teen arrested in the August 6 attack on Sahib Singh Natt in Manteca, California, is Tyrone McAllister, 18, the African American son of a police chief, Darryl McAllister of Union City.

In both cases they have not been charged with hate crime.

In the third incident, Surjit Singh Malhi, 50, was attacked by two unidentified men when he was putting up a campaign sign on his pickup truck for Republican Congressman Jeff Denham in Keyes, about 50 km from Manteca, media reports said.

Malhi said they shouted, "Go back to your country," beat him and spray-painted his truck with a white nationalist symbol and wrote "go back to ur country" on it, according to KCRA TV.

Officials are investigating this incident as a hate crime.

Customers who spoke to the WABC TV soon after the killing of Tarlok Singh, whose first name was initially spelled as "Terloka", described him as "extremely generous".

One of them, Anthony Pointdexter, said he was a "great guy, never bother nobody". He added: "He works 7 to 7 every day. One of the hardest (working) people I've ever met."

The TV said that Singh's wife and children live in India.

--IANS

al/mr