‘He did not deserve this... Do we belong here?’

attack, his friend Madasani and an American national, Ian Grillot, who tried to intervene, were injured.

Dumala said Kuchibhotla came to the US in 2005 to pursue a Master’s degree at the University of Texas and worked for six years in Iowa before moving to Kansas City. “He did not deserve a death like this,” Dumala said. “I don’t know what to say. We’ve read many times in newspapers of some kind of shooting happening somewhere. I was always concerned, ‘Are we doing the right thing staying in the US?’ But he always assured me good things happen in America.”

The Kansas City Star reported that Dumala would go to India for her husband’s funeral but would come back to their home in south Olathe, Kansas City, to fulfill her husband’s wishes of an American life and for “me to be successful in any field I choose”. But before making that decision, she said, “I need an answer from the government . ... What are they going to do to stop this hate crime? Not everyone will be harmful to this country,” she said. Dumala did not mention Trump by name.

The tragedy has led to unease among immigrants, who already feel targeted by President Trump’s plans to ban travelers from some countries and build a wall along the Mexico border to realise his campaign pledge of putting “America first”.

The Trump administration, however, dismissed as “absurd” any correlation between the President’s remarks on immigrants and the Kansas shooting. “Obviously, any loss of life is tragic, but I’m not going to get into... to suggest that there’s any correlation I think is a bit absurd. So I’m not going to go any further than that,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.

Madasani, the other Indian injured in the shooting, has been discharged from hospital. The Kansas City Star reported that when Madasani made a surprise appearance on Friday during a vigil held at Garmin in honour of Kuchibhotla, he was given a standing ovation.

The American injured in the firing, Grillot, too, is in “fair condition”, a University of Kansas Hospital spokeswoman said.

The Indian Embassy in the US has issued a demarche to the State Department on the killing and called for a speedier investigation. The embassy also asked that it be kept informed on the investigation.

PTI