I tried to soothe their worry by making the following comments:
"The USA is a nation of 300 million people and so far, this is the only incident we've heard of where a single lunatic decided to exact his own brand of revenge for the terror attacks upon an innocent man who wasn't even Arab. It's really to our nation's credit that this is the only incident we know of, isn't it? Let's be honest now: What would happen in India if Pakistan killed 3000 people in Bangalore just like what happened in New York? How safe would India's Muslim minority be? Man, I saw some news story not too long ago where 300 people were killed in a melee at a train station in India between Hindus and Muslims that started over an insult over someone's beard.
Finally, gents, it's really awful that this man was killed, and I am not trying to make excuses for this murderer, but running a sleepy late-night liquor store out on a remote highway in central Texas is pretty dangerous business. Getting killed by a gunman is almost something that would have happened to him eventually anyway."
They agreed and seemed to feel better. I recall that several other Indian engineers who were friends of theirs started treating me like they were familiar friends after that.
“A Punjabi we employed stopped wearing his turban and exchanged it for a baseball cap, even.”
Really?
It’s allowed that they can choose another type of headdress? Hmmm.
I was in Arizona in 2001, and the first murder like this happened on Sept. 15th. Frank Silva Roque killed a Sikh and shot at several other people. People were outraged about it. The jury sentenced him to death, but the court commuted it to life.