India has urged the US to conduct a thorough investigation into bodycam footage of a Seattle cop joking about the death of an Indian student after she was hit by a speeding police car.
Jaahnavi Kandula, 23, was killed in January after being hit by a police vehicle driven by Officer Kevin Dave. He was driving at nearly 120 kmph on the way to a report of an overdose, the Seattle Times newspaper reported.
Kandula was a master's student at Northeastern University's Seattle campus.
In a video released by the Seattle Police Department on Monday, another cop can be heard joking and laughing while discussing the accident.
In the clip, Seattle Police Officers' Guild Vice President Daniel Auderer, in a call with the guild's president, can be heard saying, "She is dead" before bursting out into laughter and calling Ms. Kandula "a regular person". He further said, through bursts of laughter, "Yeah, just write a check. Eleven thousand dollars.''
The clip ends with him saying: "She was 26 anyway, she had limited value", getting her age wrong.
Indian Consulate in San Francisco termed the handling of Kandula's death in a road accident as "deeply troubling" and sought action against those involved in the case.
"We have taken up the matter strongly with local authorities in Seattle & Washington State as well as senior officials in Washington DC for a thorough investigation & action against those involved in this tragic case," the mission said in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter).
"The Consulate & Embassy will continue to closely follow up on this matter with all concerned authorities," it added.
Kandula hailed from Andhra Pradesh and had been pursuing her master's degree at Northeastern University in Seattle, according to a GoFundMe fundraiser launched to support her family.
"The family has nothing to say. Except I wonder if these men's daughters or granddaughters have value. A life is a life," her uncle, Ashok Kandula, was quoted as saying on the page.
