Kaleka managed to see beauty in the tragedy. For Sikhs, tradition dictates that templegoers be prepared to feed any visitor of any faith at any temple anytime. After the shooting, members of the local Punjabi community joined emergency relief groups and rushed to the bowling alley with traditional dishes.



Congregants ate off tables set up in the bowling alley's basement as they talked to police and groped for credible reports on loved ones.



"It's a horrible event. (The Sikhs) aren't terrorists," Kaleta said. "There's nothing to fear except things that you don't know."



Platoons of police and FBI agents interviewed witnesses in the basement. The atmosphere was intense and confusion common as police negotiated language barriers and conflicting accounts, he said.



Relatives and congregants told of a chaotic scene, with women and children hiding in closets as the gunman opened fire.



Sukhwindar Nagr, of Racine, said he called his brother-in-law's phone and a priest at the temple answered. Nagr says the priest told him his brother-in-law had been shot, along with three priests.



Nagr said the priest also said women and children were hiding in closets at the temple.



He and others -- the men in turbans, the woman in flowing traditional clothes -- waited for news in a parking lot across from the temple, separated from the building by a crowd of police in tactical gear, armored vehicles, FBI agents in protective vests, ambulances and fire trucks.



"Our little temple. Right here in Oak Creek," said temple member Arpeet Singh in disbelief. "The biggest question we have, is this a hate crime?"



Inderjeet Singh Dhillon, a temple secretary, was en route when a friend called from the scene to tell him to be careful. "Why?" he asked. "We've never had any problem here."



Harinder Kaur, 22, of Oak Creek said she was with a friend Sunday morning when her friend received word of the shooting. The friend's grandfather was shot, Kaur said, and the extent of his injuries remains unclear.



"I would just like to know what this person's motive was," she said. "We are like family."



Harvinder Ahuja, a member of the temple, was at a different church Sunday morning when the shooting took place. The incident took place more than an hour before an 11:30 a.m. service, which Ahuja estimates about 350 people attend each Sunday.



"It's a good thing it happened at 10 o'clock," Ahuja said. "If it happened at 11:30, a lot more people would have been injured or died."



Harpreet Kapur is a temple member but he too had planned to go to a different temple Sunday. He watched live TV reports about the attacks on his people, who he described as "harmless."



"It felt as tragic for me as9/11," he said. "I felt the same thing I felt that day," he said, cradling his young son.



Jagpal Singh was on his way to the temple when he heard of the shooting. "If it had been another hour, I'd have been there," he said.



He went to the bowling alley after the shooting, and hé said people were desperate to explain why they were targeted.



"Over and over, (the congregants) keep asking themselves. . .Did we do anything wrong," he said.



The congregation of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin has between 350 and 400 members, according to its website. The temple also contains several living quarters for priests.



It was founded in 1997 by a few dozen families that gathered regularly on the south side of Milwaukee in rented facilities before building a permanent facility in Milwaukee. After outgrowing the "Gurudwara," meaning house of worship, the congregation completed construction on a 17,500-square-foot temple in Oak Creek, just south of Milwaukee, a few years ago.



According to the temple's website, it includes parking for 100 cars, a library and educational space for children, and living quarters.



There is one Sikh temple in Chicago, in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the Far North Side. In light of the tragedy in Milwaukee, the district commander is giving the temple special attention, police said in the statement.