Techie killing

“Looking for this suspect in the robbery & murder of 25-y.o. Sharath Kopuu at 5412 Prospect last night. Sharath was from India and is a student at UMKC. $10,000 reward for info leading to charges in this (& every KCMO murder),” the Twitter account of the police department posted, also sharing a video of the suspect.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday condoled Koppu’s death and assured all required assistance to his family. “Kansas incident - My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family. We will follow this up with the Police and provide all assistance to the family,” she tweeted.

The restaurant is reportedly owned by Koppu’s relative. Hindustan Times was not able to confirm this independently. The phone number listed on its website went unanswered.

No hate-crime or ethnic targeting is being suspected as of now, police said.

University of Missouri-kansas City, whose chancellor C Mouli Aggarwal is also of Indian descent, tweeted: “I wish to share my deepest sympathy and condolences with the family and friends of Sharath Koppu, a UMKC student who fell victim to senseless violence. Sharath and I share an Indian heritage, but all of us at UMKC share in the grief such tragedies bring.”

The university was in touch with Koppu’s family, according to reports.

Raghavender Chowdavaram, Koppu’s cousin, has started a gofundme.com account for collections to defray expenses that might be incurred in sending the body to Telangana for the last rites. The account had raised $45,000 in the 10 hours since it was started, and was well past the target amount.

Kansas City is a roughly halfan-hour drive from the city of Olathe, where Indian IT engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead by a former US military personnel armed with a handgun. Adam Purinton, the shooter, has pleaded guilty to all charge of murder, attempted murder and hate-crime and will likely spent the rest of his life in jail.