Teen pleads guilty in Sikh assault case

The 17-year-old, whose name was not released, pleaded guilty, to hitting Inderjit Mukker, 53, of Darien and will be sentenced in February in juvenile court. Mukker was assaulted on September 8 when the Willowbrook teen pulled up to his car yelling racial slurs, including, “Terrorist, go back to your country, Bin Laden!” A US citizen and father of two, Mukker was on his way to a grocery store and was repeatedly cut off by a driver.

He pulled over to the side of the road to let the driver pass, but the driver instead pulled in front of his car and aggressively approached Mukker’s vehicle. The assailant then reached into the car and repeatedly punched Mukker in the face, causing him to lose consciousness, bleed profusely and suffer a fractured cheekbone and a laceration to his cheek. He was rushed to the hospital, where he received six stitches, treatment for lacerations, bruising and swelling.

The suspect was identified through a description of the offender and his license plate number. When the police went to the teen’s home, he resisted arrest and punched an officer in the face, the state’s attorney’s office charged. The Sikh Coalition, a civil and human rights advocacy group, had called for the case to be prosecuted as a hate crime.