Teen arrested over alleged mass shooting plot at Illinois Hindu temple

A 19-year-old man has been arrested after an alleged attempt to carry out a mass shooting at a Hindu temple in the United States, according to a report by news agency Press Trust of India. Community leaders said the incident followed years of growing online hate against Hindus and Indians.

The suspect allegedly arrived at the Sri Venkateswara Swami, or Balaji, Temple in Aurora, Illinois, with a rifle and body armour while thousands of people were celebrating Navaratri. He left after his weapon jammed, officials said.

Authorities arrested Alexandros Paporakis on Wednesday. They said he had driven to the temple on Sunday afternoon and remained in its parking lot for several minutes before leaving. He was arrested later that day near his home in Palatine, Illinois, after a colleague at a Taco Bell alerted authorities to his plan to “kill Indian people”, PTI reported.

The temple, the largest in Aurora, was crowded with thousands of devotees observing the first day of Navaratri, a nine-night celebration of Shakti, the divine feminine energy believed to be the foundation of all creation.

US Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who represents Illinois' 8th congressional district, said he and his parents were inside the temple on Sunday afternoon. “Little did we know there was an attacker outside with sinister intent,” he said on Thursday. “This has really shaken us.”

At a news conference in Chicago on Friday morning, Krishnamoorthi joined faith and civic leaders in calling for the alleged attempted mass shooting to be investigated as a hate crime. They also sought an organised community response to prevent hate and extremism targeting all communities.

Pushpita Prasad, a spokesperson for the Coalition of Hindus of North America, said attacks against Hindus and Indians had increased in recent years, with racial slurs becoming more visible online.

“You see vitriolic posts associating Indians with dirt and creating disgust about their appearance, food and cultural practices,” she said. “Sooner or later, all that online hate is going to migrate to the real world.”

Several Hindu places of worship have faced vandalism and attacks across the country over the past two years. On October 3, vandals threw bricks at a Hindu temple in Richmond Heights, Ohio, breaking several windows while devotees were praying inside.

In June 2025, a gunman fired at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah, causing damage worth thousands of dollars. In Sugar Land, Texas, a 90-foot statue of the deity Hanuman, consecrated at a temple complex in 2024, has continued to draw disparaging comments. A YouTube personality recently called for its demolition.

In Frisco, Texas, where people of Indian origin account for about a third of the population, speakers during public comment sessions at city council meetings have described the Indian community as “invaders”, called Hindu temples a threat and accused H-1B visa holders of taking American jobs or committing fraud.

Administrators of the Aurora temple issued a statement on Thursday saying they valued the safety of devotees, employees and volunteers. They said additional security measures, including an “armed security presence”, had been introduced.

Krishnamoorthi said the temple, spread across 20 acres, was a cultural centre for the Chicago-area community and had been his family's home away from home for about 40 years. “For people who were newly immigrated, this became their connection to the homeland,” he said.

He said the temple hosted concerts, dance performances, birthdays and weddings, while its cafeteria serving South Indian food was also popular.

Krishnamoorthi called on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to prosecute the incident as a hate crime and urged social media companies to stop hateful content online. “The FBI also needs to redirect resources to combat domestic violent extremism,” he said. “Election fraud and immigration are not the biggest threats facing our country.”

Joel Finkelstein of the New Jersey-based Network Contagion Research Institute, which monitors threats spreading through online communities, said the weekly volume of anti-Indian content on X tripled in 2025. He said changes in immigration policies, particularly those concerning H-1B visas, coincided with measurable increases in racial slurs and calls for the deportation of Indians.

Finkelstein said the South Asian community in the US, despite having significant resources, lacked the ability to advocate for itself with strength and unity. “There is nothing to stop it from getting worse,” he said.

Sravya Tadepalli, executive director of Hindus for Human Rights, said her organisation had built strong coalitions with Muslim, Sikh and other groups whose members also faced hate. “It's important to understand that rhetoric is not just rhetoric,” she said. “It is harmful and can result in violence.”

Manjusha P Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, said her organisation's research found that online slurs targeting South Asians rose 109 per cent between 2023 and 2025. She said the threat in Illinois had also affected her personally.

“It hits all of us who are temple goers,” Kulkarni said. “Seeing how going to my house of worship can put me and my children at risk is very scary.”

Stop AAPI Hate cited what it described as “xenophobic policies and rhetoric” portraying Indians as a demographic threat. It referred to Vice-President JD Vance calling H-1B workers “indentured servants” and Bo French, the Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, describing South Asian students at a Longhorns football game as “a problem”.

French's post was followed by several social media posts calling for violence against Indian communities, including the desecration of Hindu temples and statues. Last month, a Sikh truck driver was stabbed in Wyoming, days after the Department of Homeland Security published a derogatory social media post about Sikh truck drivers.

Pardeep Kaleka's father, Satwant Singh Kaleka, was among six people killed in a mass shooting at their gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in 2012. It was the deadliest anti-Sikh attack in the US. The attacker, Wade Michael Page, was a self-proclaimed white supremacist.

After Paporakis' arrest, authorities said they recovered weapons, ammunition, a gas canister marked with a slur against South Asians and several items bearing Nazi symbols. Officials said Paporakis had written a manifesto in which he fantasised about mass murder and expressed a desire to kill as many non-white people as possible, PTI reported.

Kaleka, who co-wrote a book with a former white supremacist about his journey of forgiveness after the gurdwara shooting, said young men who carried out such attacks did not emerge suddenly.

“Most people who do this have lost hope, and their motivation is also to have you and society lose hope,” he said. “Their belief is if you can attack people in the space they hold most sacred, it plants a deep terror in communities.”

Kaleka said candid conversations across racial and religious boundaries were needed so that people could understand one another at a human level. “Unless that happens, we're more likely to see division rather than a collective spirit that joins us together,” he said.

The alleged attempt at the Aurora temple has renewed calls for a hate-crime investigation, stronger action against violent extremism and a coordinated response to online and real-world threats faced by Hindu, Indian and other communities in the US.

With PTI Inputs

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