NEW YORK: An Indian-origin teen in the US has been charged with illegally purchasing a gun with a fake ID and allegedly plotting to murder New York police officers, authorities here have said.
Ranbir Singh Shergill, 18, allegedly threatened to kill members of his family last month with a gun he kept at home in the city’s Queens neighbourhood, a report in the New York Daily News said.
FBI special agent Nicholas Olivero said in the report that a box containing a handgun, seven magazines, and 118 rounds of ammunition was found in Shergill’s bedroom. Shergill admitted he had travelled to Ohio to buy the gun for 500 dollars from a private owner, showed the seller a fake ID he had obtained on the internet and bought the ammunition in Pennsylvania.
An undated note was found on Shergill’s phone that appeared to be a plan to kill cops, the report said. According to a complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, the note read: “Do it during a snowstorm, use the snow to mask your presence. Go from dunkin donuts on van wyck (Expressway) after shooting and killing officers…And one will be male other female. Then try to kill other NYPD (New York Police Department) officers change clothes and go back to the crime scene or make false call.”
Shergill was arrested this weekend and has been ordered held.
The incident comes days after Indian-origin doctoral student Mainak Sarkar shot and killed his 39-year-old professor at UCLA and estranged wife Ashley Has before turning the gun on himself.
PTI