Racist fliers that targeted Indians in McKinney, now scare Indian family in Ford Bend, Texas

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NEW YORK: An identical racist flyer targeting Indians and Indian Americans, which was first received by residents in McKinney, Texas days before Thanksgiving, has been received by an Indian family in the Riverstone community in Fort Bend, Texas, last week.

The unidentified family in Fort Bend found the flyer left at their home in the middle of the night. The opening sentence was “Our new President, Donald J Trump is God’s gift to the white nation.” It added: “we need to get rid of Muslims, Indians, and Jews,” telling them to “get out of Texas and go back to where you came from.”

The family, described as Asian by family friend Tony Wadawhan, is too frightened to report it to police, much less discuss it publicly. They don’t know if they were specifically targeted, or if their house was selected at random, reported ABC News.

“It is literally spewing in word form hate for everybody who isn’t white Anglo Saxon,” Wadawhan was quoted as saying. “That’s basically what this letter says.”

It’s the second incident this week of hate-based incidents. Several homes in Sienna Plantation, which neighbors Riverstone, had swatiskas spray painted on fences and the side of a house. That was reported to the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating, reported ABC News.

Recently, recruitment posters were removed from several Texas universities, including Rice. They had been put up by a white nationalist group.

The regional Anti Defamation League office is seeing an uptick in reports of racially offensive leaflets and fliers in the first month of this year. In January 2016, it received about ten reports. This year, the number doubled.

The Texas Observer had reported of the prior incident of the same fliers found in McKinney. The report said the fliers also cautioned recipients against contacting police, claiming the unidentified group behind them is “watching every move” and has “members in law enforcement and government.” Immigrants from India who reported the fliers to NBCDFW.com said they were “disturbed and confused about our future here.” McKinney police had then said they were taking the incident “very seriously.”

More than 1,000 incidents of hateful intimidation and harassment were reported nationwide from November 9 through December 12, many of them apparently committed by supporters of President Donald Trump, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

SPLC listed 71 such incidents in Texas, third behind California and New York, but the group acknowledged the accounts it has received are largely anecdotal.

The Texas Observer has compiled several incidents of hate crimes in the state. Among other incidents, a Muslim restaurateur in Galveston found raw bacon smeared on the front of his business November 27, according to the Houston Chronicle. Asad Khan, a Pakistani immigrant and the owner of ZaZa Bar & Bites, said the restaurant began receiving threatening phone calls in the wake of the election, and he also discovered bacon grease smeared on the front door handle November 24.