Satwant Singh Kaleka, the president of the gurdwara in Milwaukee suburb, stood up to the rampaging white supremacist with a knife and fought to the very end and suffered gunshot wounds while trying to take down the gunman.
Six people, including Satwant Singh were killed, Sunday when Wade Michael Page attacked their gurdwara in Oak Creek. Page was shot dead.
His son Amardeep Kaleka said he was not surprised his father tried to stop the gunman.
“It’s an amazing act of heroism, but it’s also exactly who he was,” Amardeep told CNN Milwaukee affiliate WTMJ.
“There was no way in God’s green Earth that he would allow somebody to come in and do that without trying his best to stop it.”
The six killed in Sunday’s attack were identified by police as five men — Kaleka; Sita Singh, 41; Ranjit Singh, 49; Prakash Singh, 39, and Suveg Singh, 84 — and a woman, 41-year-old Paramjit Kaur.
Amardeep Kaleka told CNN that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) told him his father attacked the shooter in the lobby. There was a “blood struggle”. A knife close to the victim’s body showed blood on it, he said.
“From what we understand, he basically fought to the very end and suffered gunshot wounds while trying to take down the gunman,” said Kanwardeep Singh Kaleka, Satwant’s nephew.
Satwant Kaleka’s wife, Satpal, hid with several other women. She told them to remain quiet during the horrific incident.
“I grabbed everybody and said run, run to the pantry,” she was quoted as saying.
Amardeep Kaleka said his father was hardworking, honest man.
“I would love for them (the public) to know that he lived his life with the principles that he knew and he was taught at a young age. It made him highly successful in America.”