A 19-year-old man's alleged plot to carry out a mass shooting at a Hindu temple in suburban Chicago last month is drawing attention to a recent and steep rise in anti-South Asian and anti-Hindu hate.
asserted
plot → allege → hate
Police in Palatine, Ill., announced that on Oct. 11, a college student and Taco Bell cashier named Alexandros Paporakis tried to carry out the attack at the Sri Venkateswara Swami Temple in Aurora, Ill., roughly 40 miles west of Chicago.
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student → announce → Chicago
They said the plot was averted by a jammed gun.
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plot → say → gun
"Something of this scale … has not been directed at South Asians before," said Rohit Chopra, professor of communications at Santa Clara University and visiting fellow at the Center for South Asia at Stanford University.
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Chopra → direct → University
Two decades ago, the predominant narrative about Indian immigrants to the U.S. was glowing, describing the relatively small population as a "model minority."
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narrative → glow → minority
But Chopra says that over the last four years, a combination of growing anti-immigrant populism, economic anxiety and rising political visibility have dramatically changed the script.
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combination → say → script
Today, he said, online and political discourse more often depict Indian Americans and a broader community of people of South Asian descent in conspiracist, degrading and dehumanizing ways.
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discourse → say → ways
"It's become a question of who is American, and deliberately trying to keep the Hindu- and Indian-American community out of those conversations entirely with these sort of preconceived notions and bias against the community," said Prasiddha Sudhakar, a board member of the Network Contagion Research Institute.
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Sudhakar → become → Institute
Sudhakar was formerly a researcher at the NCRI who coauthored some of that organization's reports on the topic.
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who → coauthore → topic
Most concerning, said Sudhakar and Chopra, is that the toxic online rhetoric they have documented has moved from fringe social media platforms to mainstream ones in a short period of time.
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they → say → time
And, they said, they see strong connections between online hate and offline violence.
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they → say → hate
"It didn't start off as mainstream, maybe even like a year or a few years ago.
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It → start → mainstream
You still saw it on the internet," Sudhakar said.
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Sudhakar → see → internet
"But what has actually become more important now is that this is reaching many different parts of society in a scale that we've never seen before."
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we → become → that
A massacre averted
Paporakis has been charged in Illinois with making a terrorist threat and unlawful possession of a rifle, both felonies.
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Paporakis → avert → rifle
Police said his coworkers called to report the attempted massacre.
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coworkers → say → massacre
One of them, according to an affidavit filed by a Cook County assistant state attorney, had spoken by phone with the defendant shortly after the attempted attack.
uncertain
One → accord → attack
The affidavit further states that Paporakis had also sent that coworker messages, including an eight-page document he had written outlining his motivation for the alleged plot.
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he → state → plot
Later that day, police said that a search of Paporakis' apartment turned up a bag containing an AR-style rifle, 300 rounds of ammunition, eight loaded magazines, one loaded extended magazine and body armor.
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search → say → ammunition
They also found a gas can and items bearing Nazi symbols and anti-Indian slurs.
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They → find → symbols
"The seriousness of this alleged threat cannot be overstated," said Palatine Police Chief William Nord at a press conference.
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Nord → allege → conference
Court filings state that the written document was filled with "derogatory and racially charged slurs" directed at "people of Indian ancestry, Jews and African Americans," and that it described those groups as "subhumans."
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it → state → subhumans
It also indicated that the defendant had settled on the temple location two months prior, but had been planning an attack for two years.
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defendant → indicate → years
In the writings, the defendant allegedly described himself as "a sociopathic white supremacist Neo Nazi filled with hatred, fantasizing about mass murder nearly every day.
uncertain
defendant → describe → murder
The day that the defendant allegedly went to the temple coincided with the beginning of a major Hindu nine-day festival.
uncertain
defendant → go → festival
Krishnamoorthi has since called for the FBI to investigate the incident as a federal hate crime.
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Krishnamoorthi → call → crime
Grafting antisemitic conspiracy theories onto a new group
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Grafting → graft → group
Sudhakar, whose research was published through the NCRI, said that fringe social media spaces such as 4chan and Gab were the original loci of denigrating and dehumanizing rhetoric about Indians and South Asians.
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spaces → publish → Indians
But around 2022, Sudhakar said, her research started to see some of the negative attitudes morph into full-blown conspiracy theories.
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some → say → theories
"This is the idea of, oh, there's like this elitist group of people that are of high class, high privilege that are sort of occupying the entire government, that this is all like some sort of secret ploy," Sudhakar said.
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Sudhakar → be → ploy
The term echoes the conspiracy theory of the "Zionist Organized Government," or "ZOG," widely espoused by neo-Nazis.
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term → echo → Nazis
This baseless narrative posits that a cabal of powerful Jews runs global affairs, and closely ties with the Great Replacement Theory.
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cabal → posit → Theory
It claims that Jewish puppetmasters are deliberately diluting the power of white Christians by promoting immigration, interracial relations and diversity.
uncertain
puppetmasters → claim → immigration
Sudhakar said the main distinction is that the anti-Indian conspiracy theories center more heavily on fears over immigration and jobs, rather than changing demographics.
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theories → say → demographics
Just as the narratives position people of Indian origin as all-powerful, they also invoke dehumanizing tropes about Indians as "dirty" immigrant "invaders" being brought to the U.S. to displace technology sector workers.
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they → position → workers
"What we saw was that what began as sort of this anti-Hindu meme that began on 4chan started moving into these mainstream platforms [like X]," she said.
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she → see → X
"And every time that you'd see Indians or anyone of Hindu origin kind of gain prominence, that these same code words would also be increasing."
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words → see → prominence
Sudhakar said those spikes coincided with events such as Parag Agarwal's appointment as CEO of Twitter, Sriram Krishnan's selection as former White House policy adviser on Artificial Intelligence and the installation of Usha Vance as second lady.
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spikes → say → lady
But 2025, said Sudhakar, was when online anti-Hindu and anti-Indian hate truly mushroomed.
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hate → say → ?
Chopra, the professor at Santa Clara University, found the same, in research co-authored for the Center for the Study of Organized Hate.
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Chopra → find → Hate
…and 27 more, not listed.
The Aporia
