Gurudwara gunman had ties with racist groups

New York: The 40-year-old US Army veteran who went on a rampage inside a Wisconsin Gurudwara and killed six people, had ties to racist groups due to which he was being tracked by civil rights organisations.

Wade Michael Page was shot and killed by a police officer in the parking lot of the Oak Creek gurudwara after he wounded another police agent and killed six persons as the preparations were underway for Sunday morning prayers and meal at the gurudwara.

The New York Times quoted officials at the civil rights organisation Southern Poverty Law Centre as saying that they had been tracking Page for about a decade because of his ties to the white supremacist movement and described him as a "a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band."

Wade Michael Page was shot and killed by a police officer in the parking lot of the Oak Creek gurudwara.

The centre's officials said he played guitar and sang vocals for a band called 'End Apathy', which was started in 2005.

"This guy was in the thick of the white supremacist music scene and, in fact, played with some of the best known racist bands in the country," a senior fellow at the centre Mark Potok said.

"The music that comes from these bands is incredibly violent and it talks about murdering Jews, black people, gay people and a whole host of other enemies. It is music that could not be sold over the counter around the country," he said.

Page was living in a rented apartment in Cudahy, about five miles from the gurudwara.

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