Hyderabad techie killed in US hate crime
“We salute 24-year-old Ian Grillot,” said Shekar Narasimhan, a Democratic strategist, “who is a hero in the great American tradition but whose actions should not remain unsung. Thank you Ian and we know there are many more like you.”
Purinton fled on foot and was apprehended at a bar in Missouri state several hours later, in an eerie repeat of the killing of Balbir Singh Sandhu, the first victim of the backlash after the 9/11 terror attacks, who too was mistaken for being from the Middle East. Sandhu’s killer was apprehended at a bar later.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes, reported a three-fold increase in anti-Muslim hate groups in the US — from 34 in 2015 to 101 in 2016 — and attributed it to Trump’s anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric, calling it “incendiary”.
Narasimhan said, “This President now has blood on his hands. He has incited and created the environment where hate crimes are emboldened. All those of colour have something to fear now for our children and theirs. I pray we do not have a hot summer in the US as we have no moral leadership left capable of quelling violence if it erupts.”
As friends and family of Kuchibhotla dealt with the grief, Kavipriya Muthuramalingam, a friend, started a crowd-funding effort to help with “funeral expenses and other ongoing grief/recovery support costs” on GoFundMe. More than $271,611 had been contributed on Friday.
Garmin, the company where the two men worked, said in a statement, “We’re saddened that two Garmin associates were involved in last night’s incident, and we express our condolences to the family and friends of our co-workers involved. Garmin will have grievance counsellors on-site and available for its associates today and tomorrow.”
In a post on LinkedIn, Kuchibotla described himself as “an Aviation Programs Engineer Manager at Garmin International, I manage helicopter OEM programs from both technical and project management standpoint”.
He had earned a masters in electrical and electronics engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso during 2005-07 after coming to the US. His LinkedIn resume said he got his bachelors from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad in 2005.
Madasani too was with Garmin’s aviation programme. He studied at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and at Vasavi College of Engineering in Hyderabad.
His father, Madasani Jaganmohan Reddy, who lives at Chaitanyapuri in Hyderabad, said he believes the US isn’t a safe place after the election of Trump. He said he had urged his son to quit his job and return home. “The situation seems to be pretty bad after Trump took over as the US President. I appeal to all the parents in India not to send their children to the US in the present circumstances,” he said.
Kuchibhotla’s 70-year-old father, K Madhusudhana Sastry, a retired scientist from Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited, was stunned into silence by the shooting.
“Ever since we received the news last evening about the death of his son in the shooting in the US, he has been in a state of shock and is not speaking to anyone,” said Rentachintala Sastry, a cousin of Kuchibhotla.