Sikh trucker stabbed 17 times at a Wyoming rest stop

A 28-year-old Punjabi Sikh truck driver was stabbed 17 times at a rest area on Interstate 80 in Wyoming early on Sunday, September 13.

The driver, who spoke to NPR using only the surname Singh, said another man followed him into the bathroom at the Bitter Creek Rest Area and attacked him with a knife. He suffered wounds to his neck, chest, arms and ribs, collapsed outside, and called for help. A Hispanic family at the stop helped him and gave police a description of the suspect's truck.

Wyoming Highway Patrol stopped the vehicle near Rawlins, about 70 miles east, and arrested Andrew Kris Bzdak, 45. Prosecutors charged him with attempted first-degree murder. Sweetwater County officials say there is no known motive yet and no wider public threat. Singh remained in hospital as of Wednesday.

The attack came days after the US Department of Homeland Security posted an AI-generated graphic mocking a Sikh figure labelled "Mr Singh," with lines about immigrant truck drivers and a call to "self-deport." Community advocates say anti-South Asian rhetoric has risen, but local charging papers have not stated a hate motive.

Singh, who drives commercially out of Sacramento and has about three years on the road, told NPR he now worries about other Punjabi Sikh truckers on US highways.

Indian readers follow this for a simple reason: trucking in the US employs a large Punjabi Sikh diaspora, and rest-area violence lands close to home even when the map says Wyoming.

When a federal agency posts a cartoon that names "Mr Singh" as the problem on American roads, and a Sikh driver is then stabbed in a bathroom days later, the two events travel together in WhatsApp groups whether or not police ever prove a link. Authorities have not established motive. That gap does not stop the fear.

The case also tests whether US law treats this as ordinary attempted murder or as something that needs a clearer public accounting for South Asian drivers who keep long-haul freight moving.

Watch the Wyoming case calendar for Bzdak, and whether investigators say anything firmer about motive. Singh's recovery, and any community statements from Sikh trucking groups, will shape how the story travels in India. The DHS post is already part of the political context around the attack, even if it never enters the courtroom.