The government of India has expressed shock after an American military veteran killed an Indian-born engineer and wounded one of his colleagues in the US state of Kansas in what federal prosecutors say is a possible hate crime.
The US ambassador in India also condemned the attack on Friday, as the episode raised fresh concerns about the treatment of foreigners in the United States following the election of President Donald Trump.
Trump has made clamping down on immigration and refugees from predominantly Muslim countries a centerpiece of his foreign policy.
The deadly shooting occurred in a restaurant in Olathe, Kansas, on Wednesday at around 7:15 pm local time.
The dead man, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, worked for Garmin, an American technology company specialization in GPS navigation, which has its global headquarters in Olathe. The wounded Indian, Alok Madasani, also worked for Garmin, according to the Indian government. The men were in their early 30s.
At least one witness said that the gunman, identified as Adam Purinton, 51, yelled “get out of my country” before opening shooting. Police captured and arrested Purinton on Thursday at a restaurant in Clinton, Missouri.
A 24-year-old American man who tried to intervene after he reportedly heard the gunman issue racist slurs was shot and hospitalized.
Several federal officials, including Eric Jackson, the special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Kansas City, said at a news conference that they were looking into the possibility that the shooting was a hate crime.
The FBI reported an uptick in hate crimes in the United States last year during the 2016 US presidential election race.
Many immigrants in the US have expressed concern about the language and policies of Trump, who has ordered restrictions on immigration and a stepped-up deportation process for undocumented immigrants.
Dhruva Jaishankar, a foreign policy fellow at Brookings India in New Delhi, said if more attacks against Indians were to occur, or if the United States were perceived to not be taking such cases seriously enough, it may affect the relationship between America and India.
Last October, two men were charged with hate crimes in Richmond, California, after being accused of beating an Indian Sikh man and using a knife to cut his hair, which was uncut due to religious law.
