United States Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who is of Indian origin, said on Friday that she has received several abusive and hateful messages from a male caller.

Jayapal posted five such voicemails on Twitter, with some abusive content redacted. In one of the voicemails, the man is heard saying: “Why don’t you guys go back to where you...came from?”

It was not immediately clear when she received the messages. However, in one of the voicemails, the caller had threatened that she would be targeted “as soon as the President’s installed, like on November 4th or 5th”.

Jayapal, a member of the Democratic Party, became the first Indian-American to serve in the United States House of Representatives in 2016.

“Typically, political figures don’t show their vulnerability,” she said on Friday, while commenting on the abusive messages she received. “I chose to do so here because we cannot accept violence as our new norm. We also cannot accept the racism and sexism that underlies and propels so much of this violence.”

In July, a man holding a pistol had been seen outside Jayapal’s home in the city of Seattle, according to PTI. The police had identified the man as 49-year-old Brett Forsell, and arrested him.

In recent days, there have been numerous instances of Indians in the United States having been targeted on the basis of race and religion.

On August 21, an Indian-American man was verbally abused by another Indian-American man in Fremont California. The accused man, Tejinder Singh, allegedly described Krishnan Jayaraman as a “dirty Hindu” and a “disgusting dog” at a Taco Bell outlet, according to PTI.

On August 25, a video emerged of a woman in Texas assaulting and racially abusing a group of Indian-American women in Texas. The video showed the woman, Esmeralda Upton, as saying that she hates Indians. “Go back to India,” she was heard saying. “You...people are ruining this country.”

The police in Texas’ Plano city arrested Upton and charged her for assault and terrorist threats.