WASHINGTON: Democrats from both the House of Representatives and the Senate have condemned the exacerbating anti-Asian violence in the United States in the wake of the Atlanta massage parlour shootings that claimed the lives of 8 people, including 6 Asians.

Rodney Bryant, acting chief of the Atlanta Police Department,  has told that the probe was still in the "very early" stage, and that investigators cannot determine at the moment that the shooting spree was a hate crime, although multiple calls received by the police department sought to confirm that conclusion, reports Xinhua news agency.

Police on Tuesday evening arrested the suspect, 21-year-old white man from Georgia, Robert Aaron Long, who during an interview with law enforcement at the night claimed responsibility for the shooting incidents at three massage parlours in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Long claimed that the attacks were not racially motivated, and that he had a "sexual addiction" and saw the massage parlours as a "temptation" that he wanted to "eliminate", according to authorities, adding that Long, when caught, was on the way to Florida, where he planned to commit similar crimes.

The carnage added to the already high tensions around violence and discrimination targeting the Asian American community during the coronavirus pandemic. While condemning Tuesday's carnage, the Congressional Democrats also warned of a surge in similar hate-crimes.

On Wednesday, Congresswoman Judy Chu and Congressman Ted Lieu, both of whom are of Asian origins, accused the Donald Trump administration of stoking racial discrimination and fanning the flame of hatred toward Asian Americans by using ethnic identifiers like "China virus", "Wuhan virus" and "Kung Flu" in describing the coronavirus.

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