Indian community in US express solidarity with hate crime victims

washington — The Indian community in the United States reached out over the weekend in solidarity with the victims of an apparent hate crime in which an Indian engineer was shot dead in a Kansas bar.

Many community members remain in shock over the late on Wednesday shooting in Olathe, a suburb of Kansas City, when a drunk white man allegedly opened fire on two young Indian engineers, screaming racial slurs and telling them “Get out of my country.”

“There’s no place for senseless violence & bigotry in our society,” tweeted Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, one of the most prominent Americans of Indian descent.

“My heart is with the victims & families of the horrific shooting in Kansas,” he wrote on Saturday.

One of the engineers — Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32 — was shot dead at the bar. His friend, 32-year-old Alok Madasani, was wounded in the shooting. He has since been released from the hospital.

A white bar patron who tried to help and is being hailed as a hero, identified as Ian Grillot, was wounded and remains hospitalised.

Local police said the suspect, Adam Purinton, 51, is under arrest and faces an initial court hearing on Monday..

A GoFundMe online fundraiser page was quickly set up after the shooting, and as of Sunday had collected more than $600,000, much of it in small contributions of $5 and $10.

The money is to help with the funeral expenses “and other ongoing grief / recovery support costs” for Kuchibhotla’s widow Sunayana Dumala. “This includes the very expensive process of carrying his mortal remains back to India, so his parents can say goodbye one last time to their beloved son,” the page says. —