Hyderabad: India demanded the “strongest action” from the US government Sunday after Hyderabad’s engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed and his colleague from Warangal wounded in an apparent hate crime in Kansas City.
“USA should respond to this incident. American President and people of America should come out openly to condemn such actions... and then take the strongest action,” Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said. He and his Cabinet colleague Bandaru Dattatreya met the slain engineer’s family in Hyderabad Sunday.
“Such incidents involving racial discrimination are shameful,” Mr Naidu said. “They will dent the image of USA. So the US President, administration and civil societies should unequivocally respond and condemn such incidents.”
Kuchibhotla’s body will arrive at his home on Monday evening, a state minister in Telangana said.
“It is shocking that Kuchibhotla was shot dead in an alleged (case of) racial discrimination. It caused mental agony to all Indians. I express my sympathies to the bereaved family,” he said.
Alok Madasani who was injured in the shooting has now been released from hospital. His parents were due to leave for the US late Sunday. His father Jagan Mohan Reddy, a chief engineer with the Telangana government, told AFP they would spend at least a week in the US before “taking stock of what to do (next)”.
“They lost a dear friend (Kuchibhotla) in the attack but somehow, by God’s grace, my son survived,” Mr Reddy said.
According to reports, the shooter who has been arrested, yelled “get out of my country” before opening fire on 32-year-old Kuchibhotla and his Indian colleague Wednesday night. An American who tried to intervene also received injuries in the firing in Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe in Kansas City in the US state of Missouri.
Meanwhile, former Rajya Sabha member V. Hanumantha Rao wrote separate letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj requesting them to send an all-party delegation to talk to the Trump administration and instill confidence among Indians about their safety.
