Harnish Patel was a 43-year-old small business owner in South Carolina. The husband and father of a grade-school child had closed the convenience store he owned and worked at this past Thursday night and drove home. Upon arriving at home he was confronted by an unknown assailant and fatally shot.
Little is known at this time.
Patel was the owner of the Speedee Mart on Pageland Highway.
Police said that he closed his store and left in his Toyota minivan at 11:24 p.m. Thursday.
Investigators believe he drove from the store directly home, where he was confronted by his killer when he got out of the vehicle.
However, with the recent spate of violence against south Asian men in the United States, and the growing hostility being felt by all people of color with the rise of the Trump/Bannon regime, international news outlets are looking at this story with a jaundiced eye.
Barely two weeks after an Indian engineer became victim of hate crime in Kansas in the US, another NRI businessman of Gujarati origin has been shot dead in Lancaster in South Carolina. Harnish Patel, who ran Speedee Mart in Lancaster had closed his shop on Thursday, and was close to his house when an unidentified assailant opened fire at him, killing him on the spot. Harnish, 43, who originally hails from Avakhal village in Sinor taluka of Vadodara district had been living in the US with his family for over 14 years.
It is much too early to assume that Mr. Patel was killed in a racist or Islamophobic hate crime, but hopefully whomever was responsible will pay the price.