Austin Police Department

AMERICAN-STATESMAN file photo/American-Statesman

An argument over a candy bar between a 7-Eleven clerk and a customer, conducted in their shared language of Punjabi, turned violent after the customer told the clerk to "go back to Pakistan you Muslim," according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The clerk, identified by police as 26-year-old Parminder Gill, has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after hitting the customer with a metal pole, the affidavit said.

Gill had been working an overnight shift Feb. 19 at the store in the 6700 block of Cameron Road, when a man walked into the store around 4:45 a.m. and picked up a candy bar.

Gill told police he saw the man put the candy bar in his pocket. The clerk began to accuse the man of stealing, the affidavit said. The man, who told police that he and the clerk are both from the Middle East, said he intended to pay for the item.

The affidavit said the two began to argue in Punjabi, which is widely spoken in Pakistan and India, and the situation got more heated.

Gill told police the other man started hurling religious insults at him and telling him to leave the country.

The man said Gill told him to get out of the store and threatened to kill him several times, according to the document.

The man walked out of the store and asked another person to sit with him for a bit while Gill calmed down. But a few moments later, Gill came out of the store with an aluminum pipe, which police think had been used as a mop or broom handle, and began to beat the man, the affidavit said.

When police got the store, the victim had a 2-inch open wound on his shin, and his right foot was covered in blood, according to the report.

Medics who arrived to treat the victim said he may have had a broken arm, too, the affidavit said.

Gill initially denied beating the other man with a pipe, but later admitted to police that he had hit him several times with the pole, the affidavit said.

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