(Diya TV) — Police are investigating the execution of a horse belonging to a Tennessee Indian-American family, and are considering the killing might have been a hate crime.
Devinder Sandhu called police after a man who was delivering grain to his farm discovered his horse shot in the head Tuesday morning. The Tennessean reported Misty Blue was shot dead by a single bullet.
Metro Nashville police department officials are investigating the matter as a possible hate crime, which they believe happened sometime between noon Sunday and 8 a.m. Tuesday. The road near the pasture where the horse was found is a private, dead-end road. Sandu is a Sikh and wears a turban on a daily basis, he fears someone may have targeted him but hopes that isn’t the case.
The Sandus raised the 17-year-old horse from the day she was born in their pasture, Devinder’s son named the horse the day after she was born. They said the Tennessee Walking Horse had a big, friendly personality.
“She would have greeted somebody who came up to the fence,” Sandu said sadly.
His family misses their horse dearly, he said.
Misty Blue.
“It’s been a couple days and I still can’t do it,” he said, “I cannot imagine coming out here and not seeing her. It’s very difficult.”
“Misty Blue was born on our property and was our household pet,” said Susan Eslick, Devinder’s wife. “For 20 years the farm has been a place of delight and sanctuary for those who have visited. Since this happened it’s all be horrible.”
The family are offering a $5,000 reward to anyone with information that leads to an arrest, and have set up a GoFundMe page in an effort to raise the reward to $10,000.
Police have already determined her death was not a hunting accident.
“They tell him, ‘Go back to where you came from,’” Eslick said of her husband. “But my husband has been a vibrant part of the Nashville community. He graduated from Vanderbilt University. Whether this is a hate crime directed at my family who are constantly mistaken for being Muslim or just a random act of violence from someone looking for something to shoot … is yet to be determined. All I know is the person who did this has no regard for a life whether it be a human or an animal.”
