Indian-origin bizman shot dead outside home in South Carolina

NEW YORK: Days after the killing of an Indian engineer in an apparent hate crime, an Indianorigin businessman who was well-liked in his neighbourhood was shot dead outside his home in Lancaster, South Carolina, on Thursday night.

Harnish Patel, 43, had closed his shop at 11.24 pm and barely 10 minutes later was shot dead outside his house, according to media reports.

Patel’s death comes two days after President Donald Trump had said the nation condemned as “hate and evil” the killing of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who was shot dead in a pub the previous Wednesday in Olathe, Kansas, by a white man.

Local officials in Lancaster said they do not believe that Patel’s killing was a bias crime and that investigations are continuing, according to The Herald.

“I don’t have any reason to believe that this was racially motivated,” County Sheriff Barry Faile said on Friday.

Patel’s store was near the sheriff ’s office and deputies often frequented the store.

Faile said on TV that Patel was a “great family man” and a friend.

The station said that Patel is survived by his wife and child in elementary school, who were at home when he was killed.

People had created an impromptu shrine outside Patel’s Speedee Mart store by leaving balloons and flowers in his memory, the station said.

“Investigators believe he drove from the store directly home, where he was confronted by his killer when he got out of the vehicle,” a police statement said.

In the February 22 Kansas incident in which Kuchibhotla was killed, another Indian, Alok Madasani, who was with him at a bar, and an American, Ian Grillot, who tried to stop the shooting, were shot and injured.

A white Navy veteran Adam Purinton, 51, was arrested and charged with murder.

He had reportedly said he had shot two Iranians shooting the Indians. that after