The alleged parking lot beating of a Hindu priest from Mahwah, NJ, earlier this month is under investigation by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office as a potential hate crime, according to a report.

Devendra Shukla, 43, who lives in the Hindu Samaj Temple, said he was driving his car through the parking lot of the Interstate Shopping Center on April 3 when a man, later identified as Nicholas Dow, 30, of Ramsey, NJ, came up to his car and punched him in the face, according to a report by WNYC.

A report filed with the Ramsey Police said Shukla was “visibly upset, crying” and had a bleeding cut on his lip, newsreports said.

He also filed a report with the Mahwah Police and said that the man who beat him called him a “dirty Indian" and that his 6-year-old daughter crouched in the back of his car and screamed as he “was attacked and is totally traumatized by the incident,” according to newsreports.

Dow was arrested by the Ramsey Police on April 4 and charged with simple assault and burglary, according to online jail records. He was booked in Bergen County Jail but was later released.

Dow told police he got into a verbal altercation with the priest after he was cut off by his car but said he did not assault him.

In a statement to media following the incident, Shukla stated he was attacked without provocation. “My 6-year old daughter who witnessed the incident is still traumatized by it,” he wrote.

“The hatred that was directed at me is something that I will never understand. I am just concerned for my family’s well-being and safety at this point, especially given the fact that the assailant lives just down the street from the temple and my residence,” wrote the priest.

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has said that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office was investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

The local Indian American community has initiated a petition, asking that Dow be given the maximum penalty. More than 3,100 people had signed the petition as of April 26.