Two men are in custody on charges of murder, following Wednesday morning's fatal shooting of a man near Downtown Turlock.
Pardeep Singh, 21, and Kultar Singh Dhatt, 22, both of Turlock, have been arrested for the murder of Amritpal Singh Sandhu, 21, of Modesto, following an extended car-chase shooting that occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Singh also faces charges of assault with a firearm, and shooting at an inhabited dwelling or occupied car.
The arrests follow an investigation conducted by the Ceres Police Department. Both men are currently in Stanislaus County Jail.
The shooting began at roughly 1:25 a.m. on Highway 99 near Taylor Road. Sandhu called 9-1-1 from the road to report that unknown men were shooting at him from a second vehicle, a dark-colored sedan, while he was traveling southbound.
Shortly thereafter, Turlock police received 9-1-1 calls reporting gunfire in the area of East Main Street and Lyons Avenue. Bullet casings were located on Pioneer Avenue, indicating the fatal shooting likely occurred there.
Sandhu was found dead in his car, a white Inifiniti sedan, just a few blocks away. The car jumped the curb in front of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at the intersection of East Main Street and Minaret Avenue.
Based on his Facebook account, Sandhu was born in Jalandhar, India. He was part of a secessionist movement which hopes to create a separate Sikh country called Khālistān, which translates as “The Land of the Pure.” Most of his posts are related the 1984 Sikh Massacre in India, which occurred following the shooting of Indira Gandhi.
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Alex,
I’m glad you did your “research” (facebook stalking), but trying to identify a young victim of an act of brutality is not only sickening, it also fuels a lot of ignorant views and hatred towards certain religions or movements. The term terrorist comes to almost anyone’s mind when you indicate anyone remotely brown who was religious fanatic. (Keep in mind, only muslims or people resembling muslims easily acquire that title for any type of acts of violence) A twenty-one year old child whom has most likely never even remotely been involved in any type of violence as a result of religion is being portrayed as a fanatic through your closing statements, there is something seriously wrong with the picture or inference you are trying to create. I’m pretty sure a 21 year old kid driving an Infiniti most likely is into cars, sports and a plethora of other activities that go beyond any type of concern for a massacre that happened before he was born. The Khalistan movement is something that has been far from active for decades at this point. Media has a lot of power and influence over masses, especially the ignorant ones that strictly rely on people such as yourself to shape their limited perception of life. It’s a gross misuse of your undeserved power to affiliate this incident in any manner to any type of religious or secessionist movement. Please educate yourself better on issues and the actuality of concepts before polluting minds, it’s your duty as a writer or you should potentially just seek a career in a different field. There’s a lot of harm that comes from hatred built on ignorance or misinformed individuals. Racial profiling and hate crimes are a direct result of the perception created by media and isolated incidents. Luckily, I didn’t go around shooting every caucasian male I saw after Tim McVeigh or the Unabomber. I have no clue whom any of the parties involved are and most likely it’s the type of violence or rivalry that exists between kids caught up in the wrong crowd. Nonetheless, it’s saddening knowing a twenty-one year old lost their life. Please be more aware of the consequences or impacts of your words, a really ignorant individual could see this as a reason to truly terrorize innocent people in the future. It also wouldn’t hurt to be a little respectful, I’m sure he was someone’s son who passed away and most likely a brother, significant other, friend so on.
Im disturbed as well with that face book part of the article. Bad, bad journalism, totally painting a wrong picture and stereotyping before the facts are in. Think before you post next time.
Alex,
Good job at trying to sensationalize a sad ending by throwing in the sectionalist bit!! Not sure what you’re trying to achieve here but I don’t think you hold any merit in talking about Khalistan movement when you don’t know the facts. I don’t see how this is related to the “Sikh genocide” of 1984 either. Ignorance at its best!
I must agree with the comments previously made. For someone to link a murder to something completely un-related like the Khalistan movement, is indicating, to many people, that the two are somehow linked. The offense was not fueled or motivated by any sort of movement related to Sikhism or Khalistan. Please research a little more on the Khalistan movement and what it actually stands for, and what has been done, before throwing out words that have no meaning to you.
I dont get this y would someone put his what gang or organization he in or work for on facebook account. Think about it no one is that stupid. He was just a young kid
Don’t make the Sikh look like violent people. Our religion is peaceful most of the time. But when we aren’t watch out! https://turlockcitynews.com/life-social/item/611-two-brawls-rock-sikh-temple-in-turlock
Alex,
Your closing statements are completely out of line. I’m sure doing any kind of extensive research is probably above your pay scale, but if you have any aspirations of becoming a journalist, I’d start checking my facts before posting news articles. This kind of pathetic lazy work will end your career before it ever started.
How about looking into who he was as a person? what he did for a living? who did he leave behind? was he the bread-winner for his family? or anything that is actually RELATED to the story?
Please don’t take this as a emotionally charged comment, I don’t know the victim or the suspects. I just wanted to let you know how lame your closing statements truly are.
Alex,
I believe all the comments below have already stated the opinions that Majority of the people have about this article.
This sensational journalism you are using by relating this murder to Mr. Sandhu’s Facebook posts about Khalsitan is irresponsible and ridiculous.
I hope you have the guts to actually respond back to these comments and defend why you would do such a cowardly thing.
Alex,
I don’t understand where you are getting your facts from or if this kid being in a Khalistan movement is relevant to him being shot. It just doesn’t make any sense, a man was shot to death at such a young age and all you have to talk about is his status on Facebook? It”s because of articles like these that downgrade our religion and make people believe that we are bad. Maybe you should do some research on what happened in 1984. All in all I want to say is that what you have written is pathetic and you should focus on what the true motive was for young man getting killed and who/what he left behind.
Unknown foreigners complaining about referencing Facebook pages can go back to their country where people are beheaded and women are raped in the open and then burned to death in public. We don’t care if that’s your cult practices but we won’t stand for it here.
Excuse me but this is for the person that posted this: “Unknown foreigners complaining about referencing Facebook pages can go back to their country where people are beheaded and women are raped in the open and then burned to death in public. We don’t care if that’s your cult practices but we won’t stand for it here.” This really shows your ignorance, get your facts straight have you seen people being beheaded, have you seen them being burnt, I didn’t think so. So do us all a favor and keep your ignorant thinking to yourself. Thanks!
I DON’T SEE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE JOURNALIST WRITING SOME INFO HE FOUND ON HIS FACEBOOK PAGE.
It seems to me that Alex was just stating facts. He was stating what he observed on the victims facebook, I guess if it wasn’t true the dead man shouldn’t have written it. And to the person that is whining about stereotyping. Sterotyping is based of statistical facts.
IF IT IS ON FACEBOOK…THEN ANYTHING GOES(INCLUDING INFERENCES)
To the last person that said cult practices! You are uneducated about different cultures. So how about you go open a book and then come back and say something. That’s what’s wrong with this country people like you have no idea what they are talking about. Get your facts straightened out first. Someone’s life got lost and all you can think about is this. You disgust me
The bottom section of this article is atrocious. Absolutely no merit or connection to the shooting, and just as bad as something you would expect from the crazies at Fox News. Completely ignorant even try to mention anything about the Sikh genocide when it’s clear the writer knows nothing about it, or what it means to the Sikh population. Shame on you for trying to pass this ignorance as “journalism”…you should be embarrassed.
These kids make Sikhs look bad! In fact Sikhs are the most amazing people on earth! Just like any other race their are black sheep’s.. so please don’t go trash talking on Sikhs bkoz Sikhs don’t trash talk any other religion…
Based on his Facebook account, Sandhu was born in Jalandhar, India. He was part of a secessionist movement which hopes to create a separate Sikh country called Khālistān, which translates as “The Land of the Pure.” Most of his posts are related the 1984 Sikh Massacre in India, which occurred following the shooting of Indira Gandhi
He is simply stating information on the victim. I don’t mind knowing that this victim I was born in India and it does not matter to me if he is Christian Catholic Muslim or Sikh. Sometimes when people read articles and they know there is a victim, they are interested in victim. And they want to know more about the victim. Alex simply stated that based on his Facebook account he was born in India and this is his religion… Smart person with common sense would take that for what it’s worth in realize that this kid was probably a good kid considering he was so into his religion. Some people want to jump the gun in automatically assume and twist up what that paragraph was really about. In all it was about was giving me more information about the background of the victim. You do understand that this is a victim and not the perpetrator right is it was a perpetrator then I can understand talking down on him in trying to use opinions or point things in a certain direction. But ask for a victim do you really think that he’s talking about his religion to prove that he’s a bad person? No I think he is talking about what religion believes in and where he was born just to give the read it a better idea on who it was I got shot. In my point of view it actually tells me that the victim was probably a good person considering like I said he was very bald with his religious beliefs religious belief that are in no way associated with violence. So all you guys who have posted this but I think it’s probably just one person posting over and over again you need to re read article and realize all you doing is stating facts.
Alex,
Your decision to add bullshit details to this article is shameful. I believe you owe not only the family of deceased but sikh community an apology.
The wikipedia research at the end is adorable. Your defenders claim you were doing research, looks pretty half assed to the rest of us though.
A lot of anonymous sand people got their turbans in a bunch.
Stop being racist and trying to put fear (terrorist) into Alex to censor what the dead guy had on his Facebook.
Mr. Cantatore’s meager attempt at “research” for his bit of irrelevant gossip at the end of the article is the perfect example of why Turlock City News always has been (and will continue to be seen as) the TMZ of Turlock.
Regrettably the information in the last paragraph is not factual.People do put various things on their facebook pages especially young men in this age group that are just attempts to show off rather than the truth. The truth is Khalistan movement was in 1980s and had ceased to exist since 1992-93.This unfortunate young man probably was not even born then.Maligning a young kid who is dead now,without checking the facts is irresponsible journalism.
I don’t understand why they have done this
Is the guy on the left the guy who works at that new store used to be quick stop lander/linwood
Not sure why everyone is hating on the author of this article. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with stating some background info on the victim.
You’re a joke Cantatore. He just lost turlockcitynews a considerable amount of web traffic.
you are the joke because cantatore’s story has over 800 likes on this page now. indian pride is getting old here. sign your name if you’re not a joke
No I think he worked at the dot shop??
Well, it sure did clear the bums out of Denair Park (which is right across the street.) 🙂
Tea parties up in here! Load up on guns and bring your friends!!