Punjab Singh becomes eighth official death of 2012 Sikh Temple of Wisconsin shooting

More than seven years after the attack on the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, another victim of the mass shooting has died.

Punjab Singh, a well-known Sikh priest who was grievously wounded during the assault, died early Monday at West Allis Memorial Hospital.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office determined Singh died from complications of the gunshot wounds he suffered in 2012, making him the eighth official death of the mass shooting.

He was 72.

"People should know that until the day he died he embodied optimism," said Pardeep Kaleka, executive director of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee.

"Six people passed that day," added Kaleka, whose father was one of the victims. "The seventh was the shooter. Punjab Singh would be the eighth one."

On Aug. 5, 2012, a white supremacist gunman burst into the temple in Oak Creek, killed six people and wounded four others. The gunman killed himself after being wounded by an Oak Creek police officer.

Singh, who frequently traveled to Wisconsin, had been in Milwaukee for only a few days before the attack.

He was shot in the right cheek, spent months recovering in a hospital and then lived most of the rest of his life in a long-term care facility.

The attack left Singh paralyzed. He could communicate yes and no by blinking his eyes.

"He couldn't talk. He couldn't move. But he would understand if you talked to him," said Mandeep Kaur, a friend of the family.

Singh was born in Pakistan and moved with his family to the Punjab state in northern India. As a teen, he embarked on a path to becoming a priest.

"He was a spiritual leader," Kaur said. "He traveled throughout the United States and in India. He was a preacher by profession. He was someone who believed in honest living, helping the less fortunate. Someone that believed in health. He was very active. When it came to eating, he was cautious by what he ate."

"He was somebody who lived by an example," she added. "He put the example for others to follow. He didn't just preach. He lived what he preached."

Kaur said the last seven and a half years were very difficult for Singh and his family. He is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.

The New York-based Sikh Coalition released a statement from one of Singh's sons, Raghuvinder Singh.

He said his father's “capacity for love and optimism was unchanged by the heinous attack in Oak Creek, as well as the life-altering injuries he sustained. Even when I regularly visited him in the hospital after his paralysis, I would ask him: 'Are you living in chardi kala, the Sikh spirit of eternal optimism?' Each time, without fail, he would blink twice to say ‘yes.’ ”

"His resilience embodied the greater Sikh community’s response in the wake of the Oak Creek tragedy, and it was one of the many lessons he continually taught throughout his life," the statement said.

He said the lives lost during the attack "are a reminder of the toxic hate that still plagues our country," but that he wants his father remembered by the values "that he exemplified every day — including love, equality, humility, eternal optimism, and service to others."

The Akhand Path, a 48-hour recitation of Sikh holy scriptures, will begin at 3 p.m. Thursday at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, 7512 S. Howell Ave., Oak Creek.

Funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. Saturday at Max A. Sass & Sons Funeral Home, 4747 S. 60th St., Milwaukee. Akhand Path and Kirtan, a hymn sung in the praise of God, will take place at 2:30 p.m. at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin.