Source: Mercury News

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/editorial/4175623.htm

On September 29, 2002 Mercury News reported that "nearly a month after a Hindu man allegedly tried to rape a Muslim girl while spewing hateful epithets, many Bay Area Indo-American Muslims and Hindus are still divided over the significance of the crime. Within the somewhat estranged communities, the meaning of the Palo Alto incident has transcended the facts stated by police and prosecutors and taken on a life of its own. Some Indian Muslims have seized upon the attempted-rape allegations as proof of the global reach of the same Hindu nationalist political parties that allowed Hindu mobs to savagely rape, torture and kill scores of Muslim women in Gujarat, India, this past spring. Applying events in India to Palo Alto has become even more emotionally charged because of mixed messages sent by police and prosecutors, who have disagreed about whether there was a rape and whether it was a hate crime."