‘Something has changed’
Indians urged to stay away from US after fatal shooting
Family members of the Indian men shot at a Kansas bar in a possible hate crime say they fear that the current atmosphere of fear and xenophobia in the United States means it is not a safe place for Indians, with one father exhorting parents not to send their children there.
‘‘There is a kind of hysteria spreading that is not good, because so many of our beloved children live there,’’ said Venu Madhav, a relative of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the young software engineer fatally shot at Austins Bar & Grill in Olathe on Thursday. ‘‘Such hatred is not good for people.’’
Kuchibhotla and his friend and colleague Alok Madansani, 32, were at the bar when an allegedly drunk man began hurling racial slurs at them and then opened fire, reportedly shouting ‘‘Get out of my country,’’ witnesses said.
Kuchibhotla, 32, was seriously wounded and died later at a hospital. Madansani and a third victim, Ian Grillot, who tried to intervene, were treated for shotgun wounds.
Adam W Purinton, 51, of Olathe, a US Navy veteran, was later arrested and charged with firstdegree murder and attempted first-degree murder. Federal law enforcement officials said they and local police were investigating to determine whether the shootings were ‘‘bias motivated’’.
Witnesses said Purinton seemed to be under the impression that the men were of Middle Eastern descent.
Family members of the victims living in the southern city of Hyderabad told The Hindustan Times that the two friends – software engineers with Olathebased GPS device maker Garmin – had not antagonised Purinton, who had ‘‘picked an argument’’ with them, suggesting that they were staying in the US illegally.
‘‘They tried to tell him that they had done their [master’s degrees] in Kansas in 2006 and had been staying there with valid work permits,’’ a relative said.
Madasani’s father, Madasani Jaganmohan Reddy, told the Times that in recent months he had begun asking his son to return home, fearing that he might not be safe in the country’s racially charged atmosphere, with ugly incidents and hate groups on the rise.
‘‘The situation seems to be pretty bad after [Donald] Trump took over as the US president. I appeal to all the parents in India not to send their children to the United States in the present circumstances,’’ Reddy said.
Madhav told The Washington Post that Kuchibhotla’s family was in shock, and that it was the third such possible hate crime in recent weeks that had affected members of the Telegu-speaking southern Indian community in the US.
‘‘Something has changed in the United States,’’ he said. ‘‘Such things are not good for the Indian community living here.’’
In India, the minister of external affairs, Sushma Swaraj, said she was ‘‘shocked’’ by the attack and had ‘‘rushed’’ two diplomats from the Indian consulate in Houston, Texas to Kansas.
An estimated 300,000 Indians are working in the US on H-1B high-skilled worker visas, mostly in the business outsourcing and software industry. The Trump administration is reportedly considering limiting or changing the programme, which has made many H-1B workers fearful.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said yesterday that any loss of life was tragic, but it would be absurd to link the killing to Trump’s rhetoric.
Pratik Mathur, a spokesman for the Indian embassy in Washington, said India had expressed ‘‘our deep concern over the incident’’ to the US government and requested a ‘‘thorough and speedy investigation’’.
Several members of the Kansas City area’s Indian-American community said the attack had forced them to think about their safety.
‘‘The main reaction is shock, because this is home,’’ said Samarpita Bajpai, 45, who lives in suburban Overland Park and runs a non-profit Indian dance company.
Bajpai said that for the first time in her nearly 20 years living in the Kansas City area, she would try to refrain from being out late at night. However, she said the local area had always been very welcoming.
Vijay Ainapurapu, the former president of the India Association of Kansas City, said the local Indian-American community had grown about tenfold since he arrived in the area in 2001.
Due to the shooting, safety precautions were a major talking point for his group, he said.
I appeal to all the parents in India not to send their children to the United States in the present circumstances. Madasani Jaganmohan Reddy, victim’s father
Ainapurapu, who came to the US in 1998 and previously lived in Texas and California, said Kansas City had been ‘‘as welcoming as any other place in America’’.
Kansas City resident Ajay Sood, 50, who teaches courses in Indian culture and ran as a write-in candidate for US president last year, said he often found that nativeborn Americans were ignorant of his background.
‘‘Most of the Americans who have never travelled outside the US, they cannot identify who’s a Pakistani, who’s an Indian, who’s an Afghani and who’s a Sikh.’’
Purinton often complained about his ill health and was mourning his father’s death, according to a neighbour and local media reports.
‘‘They’re shocked,’’ said Raymond Horspool, who lives a few houses away from Purinton, of his neighbourhood’s residents.
Purinton had lived in Olathe since 1998. He was known by neighbours as a low-key figure, and as a regular of Austins who was generally friendly, said Horspool.
Purinton once worked for the Federal Aviation Administration, said an agency spokesman, who declined to say how long Purinton was with the FAA or what position he held.
Since leaving the FAA in 2000, he had held a number of jobs, including working at a local liquor store and at an information technology business, according to local media.
Over the past year, Purinton had increasingly complained about his health, and frequently visited the Veterans Administration for medical testing, the Kansas City Star reported. After his father died about a year ago, he also talked frequently about how he was grieving for him.
But while he often appeared to be distressed, neighbour Michael Shimeall told the newspaper, he did not seem hostile. ‘‘I never saw his temper or anything like that.’’