NEW YORK: It was a scene of terrifying ugliness on a New York City bus: a blustering, apparently drunken man with a beer bottle in’ a paper bag, pushing his way through the crowd, then confronting a man in a turban, an Indian bom medical doctor with six college degrees, a gentle, levelheaded man who had always tried to avoid conflict.
They were aboard the northbound) M15 bus on First Avenue near 42nd Streetabout8: 15 Friday night Sept.8th, when the man came lurching and stumbling through the crowd, Dr. Kanwarjit Singh, a 40 year old internist in residence at New York University Medical Center, recalled Sept. 10th.
“As he was weaving his way through the bus, he bumped me, and began to yell at me, ‘Respect my space Respect my space! Dr. Singhsaidin an interview from a bed at Bellevue Hospital Center.
Dr. Singh’s wife. Harmeet Dhillon, a lawyer, who relayed some of her husband’s version of his encounter with the stranger, said the man finally screamed at the husband: “Get out of my way, you Hindu..” ending with an obscenity.
“Of course,” Ms. Dhillon said, ‘my husband is a Sikh, not a Hindu.”
The aggressive man, who was black, continued to scream racial and ethnic slurs at Dr. Singh, his wife said, and when her husband silently backed away, the man raised his beer bottle as if to strike him. That is when someone noticed the bulge in his waistband and shouted” Gun He’s got a gun.”
The driver immediately pulled the bus to a stop on First Avenue and 45th Street, and riders spilled off in a panic to escape the danger.
When the bus had cleared out, Dr. Singh and the man confronting him were left alone at the back, Ms. Dhillon said. The man blocked the doctor’s way. The driver watched from the front.
“There was the ‘High Noon* moment with him and me and the driver,” Dr. Singh recalled,
Ms. Dhillon added: “He kept shouting about how he’d been insulted and wanted an apology. He says, Get down, on your knees and apologize.’ My husband made NO attempt to comply. so the guy ‘began to pull his gun and shot himself in the groin. He was very intoxicated, and when he shot himself he became completely infuriated he emptied his gun at my husband.”
All but one of the shots went wild. But one bullet struck Dr. Singhin the left chest, missing his heart but fracturing several ribs, passing through and collapsing his left and lodging in several fragments in his back, Mrs. Dhillon said.
Saturday, after surgery, the doctor was listed in critical but stable condition, and the suspect, who was charged with attempted murder, was in serious but stable condition.
Dr. Singh, who lives with his 26yearold wife on East 86th Street, seemed in good spirits, despite his wounds, and said he bore neither his assailant nor the city any ill will.
“I am an enthusiastic resident of New York,” he said. “I am a citizen. I love this place. This is just the price of the ticket. It’s abroad shouldered city and were a small ethnic group. If you live in a city like this, you have to live with a certain risk.” Asked if he had any bittiness toward the man who shot him, he said” prefer to think I had providential escape. Things could have been much worse. I can truthfully say I bear him no bitterness.
She said He’s really levelheaded, sensitive, kind, very gentle very principled. He was not going to back down because he was challenged, but he avoids conflict. He doesn’t ever win an. argument with me. So that this could happen to him is shocking. He certainly had nothing to do with provoking it.”
The confrontation, though ugly with racial and ethnic overtones, was not fatal, and Dr. Singh said he had emerged psychologically transacted “I ‘ve enjoyed every moment of New York,” Dr. Singh said. “I feel myself a privileged member of this mosaic. It’s more sorrow and grief that I feel than anger.” WSN extends its wishes for a speedy recovery to Dr. Singh.
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Article extracted from this publication >> September 15, 1995
