NEW YORK (Diya TV) — Maple Shade police officials said the New Jersey slayings of Sasikala Narra and her six-year-old son Anish Narra is not a hate crime.
“I would like to emphasize that this doesn’t appear at all to be a hate crime, or bias crime based on the fact that [the victims] are of Indian origin,” Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the Burlington County prosecutor’s office, told The American Bazaar.
The deaths are being investigated as homicides, Bewley said, no arrests have yet been made in the incident. Narra and her son were killed inside of their suburban Philadelphia home, officials said authorities were called to the home shortly after 9 pm by Narra’s husband after he discovered the bodies of his wife and child.
“The preliminary investigation revealed that both victims were stabbed multiple times,” a statement from Burlington County Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi said.
Hanumantha Rao Narra is a software professional, he and his wife moved to the United States nine years ago from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
The killings come on the heels of the Olathe triple-shooting that left Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla dead and Alok Madasani injured. Concerns from the Indian-American community regarding hate crimes has been at an all-time high in the wake of a series of incidents that have taken place across the country.
“Contrary to some media reports, at this point there is no indication that this is a hate crime connected to the fact that the victims are of Indian origin,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
