Indian-origin couple killed by daughter’s ex-lover

An Indian-origin couple was shot dead by their daughter’s former boyfriend at their home in San Jose, California, earlier this week. The shooter, who briefly held the couple’s younger son as a human shield, was killed by the police.

Naren Prabhu, vice-president of engineering at Juniper Networks, was found dead in the doorway and his wife Raynah Sequeira Prabhu was inside. Their daughter Rachel Prabhu, whose ex-boyfriend killed them, lives in another state.

Police identified the shooter as Mirza Tatlic, 24, and said he suffered from mental illness and had struggled to find work. He and Rachel broke up a year ago, and the Prabhus had taken out a restraining order against him.

“The suspect had been in a dating relationship with the victims’ adult daughter who was not home,” San Jose police chief Eddie Garcia said. “The relationship ended last year. The suspect had a history of domestic violence and there was an active criminal restraining order.”

Citing police sources, local media outlet The Mercury News said Tatlic told the police in a phone call during the stand-off that he killed Rachel’s parents as payback “to cause her pain, just as she had caused him pain by breaking up with him”.

Cops were called by the family’s adult son, who told them his father had been shot and possibly also his mother. “Officers learned from him that his mother and 13-year-old brother, along with the suspect, were still inside the house,” Garcia said. A stand-off ensued as the suspect refused to give himself up and at one stage, held the son as human shield. However, he let him go shortly.

In a suspected incident of hate crime, a Nadala resident was stabbed to death by an unidentified person outside his store at Modesto city in California on Friday. The victim was identified as 32-year-old Jagjeet Singh.

The deceased was living with his sister and brother-in-law for the past one-and-a-half years. He is survived by his wife Kuljeet Kaur and two sons.

Kanwarjit Singh Cheema, the victim’s brother-in-law, said Jagjeet’s co-worker Sikander Singh informed them that a man came to the store at around 11.30pm and asked for a cigarette. However, Jagjeet refused and asked him for his identity card, which the latter failed to produce.

The man left the store in a huff after hurling racist abuses at Jagjeet and warned him of dire consequences. “Later, when Jagjeet came out after closing the store, a man attacked him with sharpedged weapons. Though he was rushed to a local hospital, he succumbed to his injuries.”