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Houston/Washington, Feb 24
A 32-year-old Indian engineer was killed and another Indian man and an American were injured after a navy veteran yelling “get out of my country” and “terrorist” opened fire on them at a bar in Kansas City in an apparent racially-motivated hate crime.
Srinivas Kuchibhotla, working at GPS-maker Garmin headquarters in Olathe, died of bullet injuries in a hospital.
Edit: Hate takes a shot
His Indian colleague Alok Madasani was critically injured when the 51-year-old man went on a shooting spree after hurling racial slurs following an altercation on Wednesday night.
A third person, an American man identified as Ian Grillot, 24, who tried to intervene also received injuries in the firing in Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe in the US state of Missouri. The shooter, Adam Purinton, reportedly got into an argument with the victims in the terms of racism, and shouted “get out of my country”, “terrorist” before shooting them.
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Purinton reportedly provoked them into an argument asking about their presence and work in his country, and how they are better than him.
According to the police, Purinton left the bar after the argument and then returned with a gun and shot the three men while patrons were watching the University of Kansas-TCU basketball game on television in the bar.
The shooter was arrested five hours after the incident. Authorities declined to say whether the shooting was a hate crime although local police said they were working with the FBI to investigate the case. “It was a tragic and senseless act of violence,” Olathe Police Chief Steven Menke said.
“The FBI is investigating to determine if the shooting was a bias-motivated hate crime in violation of the victims’ civil rights,” Eric Jackson, special agent, said. Asked if the presence of federal authorities indicated the shooting could be a hate crime, Jackson said it was too early to determine.
The shooting incident comes at a time when hate crimes and acts of bigotry have risen notably in America after President Donald Trump came to power.
In New Delhi, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj expressed shock over the incident and said two Indian consulate officials from Houston have been rushed to Kansas to render all possible assistance.
Kuchibhotla posted on LinkedIn in 2014 that he managed helicopter programmes. He had a Master’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad.
The shooter, a navy veteran with an inactive pilot licence and air traffic controller certificate, told a bartender in Clinton, Missouri, where he was hiding after the shooting that he killed two Middle Eastern persons. He has been charged with premeditated first-degree murder and his bond has been set at $2 million.
Friends of Kuchibhotla have set up a GoFundMe page to help raise funds for sending his remains to India.
The third victim, Grillot, said he hid behind a table when Purinton opened fire.
He counted the gunshots and when he thought the gunman was out of bullets, he jumped up to stop him but Purinton still had one round left, and he used it to shoot Grillot. Grillot said that he learned Madasani’s wife is five months’pregnant and that he considers the engineer his new best friend. — PTI
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