Kansas city shooting: Hyderabad engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead in a bar in US
Highlights
- Indian shot dead, another injured in US in alleged hate crime
- The shooter yelled 'get out of my country', opened fire
- The accused has been arrested
Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an engineer from Hyderabad, was with his friend at a bar in Kansas when a man allegedly yelled "get out of my country" before shooting at them. Mr Kuchibhotla was killed. His friend, Alok Madasani, has been released from hospital.
A witness who tried to intervene, Ian Grillot, was shot, but is expected to survive the attack.
The shooter was a 51-year-old navy veteran.
Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj tweeted "I am shocked" and said she has promised assistance to Mr Kuchibhotla's family including helping to bring the 32-year-old's body back to Hyderabad.
Alok Madasani, another Indian injured in attack, has been released from hospital.
The US embassy in New Delhi condemned the shooting. "The United States is a nation of immigrants and welcomes people from across the world to visit, work, study, and live," US Charge d'Affaires MaryKay Carlson said in a statement.
"US authorities will investigate thoroughly and prosecute the case, though we recognize that justice is small consolation to families in grief," the statement read.
Mr Kuchibhotla was catching up on Wednesday evening over a drink with his friend in Olathe, the fourth-largest town in Kansas with a population of about 130,000. Adam Purinton then started shouting at them calling them "Middle Eastern" and warning "get out of my country" before firing multiple rounds.
Mr Purinton managed to escape in the confusion that followed the shooting and was caught in Missouri over five hours later, where he told a staffer at a local bar that he had shot two Middle-Eastern men. The bartender called the police.
Shooter Adam Purinton, a 51-year-old Navy veteran, thought the two Indians were "middle-eastern"
Srinivas Kuchibhotla worked at an American multinational that makes GPS systems in Kansas. He joined the company in 2014. His wife, Sunayana Dumala, works in a technology company in the area.
According to his Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, Mr Kuchibhotla graduated from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad in 2005. He then got his Master's in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso, where he taught as a research assistant before graduating in 2007.
Austins Bar & Grill where Adam Purinton shot two Indian engineers, Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani
A GoFundMe page has been set up to collect money to fly Mr Kuchibhotla's body to India. The page has crossed its $150,000 goal, raising nearly $200,000 in eight hours.