[Before the cremation, the family washed and prepared the body of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, outside their home in a gated community near Hyderabad called Bachupally. The victim’s wife, Sunayana Dumala, and his elderly mother wept openly and the older woman had to be revived after fainting.]
By Ashish Pandey and Paul
Schemm
 |
|
Relatives carry the body
of Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who was killed
by a gunman in Kansas,
for his funeral in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
(Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty
Images)
|
HYDERABAD, India — Hundreds of mourning
relatives joined government ministers Tuesday at funeral rites for an Indian
engineer killed in Kansas by a shotgun-wielding gunman spewing racial epithets.
The somber gathering in southern India —
nearly a week after the shooting — also took on political overtones in response
to a perceived anti-foreigner wave in the United States linked to President
Trump’s “America-first” policies.
The mother of the slain engineer begged her
other son not to return to the United States, and two politicians turned up
with signs that said “Down with Trump” and “Xenophobia in any form is
unacceptable.”
Before the cremation, the family washed and
prepared the body of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, outside their home in a gated community
near Hyderabad called Bachupally. The victim’s wife, Sunayana Dumala, and his
elderly mother wept openly and the older woman had to be revived after
fainting.
She said she feared letting her other son,
Sai Kishore, return to the United States, where he also lives.
“I will not allow him to go back. I don’t
want to lose another son,” the mother, Vardhini Parvatha wailed. A truck
carried the body to the cremation ground about 23 miles away, where over 200
had gathered.
Family members held the bier aloft, covered
with roses.
A decade-long resident of the United States
who worked at the aviation systems department of the Garmin technology firm,
Kuchibhotla was shot dead Wednesday by a suspect who later said he believed he
and a companion were of Middle Eastern descent.
Kuchibhotla and his friend Alok Madasani, 32,
were in the crowded Austin’s Bar and Grill watching a basketball game when the
suspect, described as inebriated, opened fire on them. Madasani was wounded, as
was another patron who attempted to intervene.
The family members gathered at the parent’s
home to mourn Kuchibhotla and express fear over the fate of other Indians
living in the United States.
Locals have linked the rise of racism in the
United States to President Trump’s election.
“We are all middle class and lower middle
class people and we send our children abroad with hope,” said M. Rajkumar,
president of an association for parents of Indians living abroad. “Many of our
young prefer to go to America for higher education. . . .
Now the situation has changed after Trump has become president of the United
States, racism is high and this incident is a clear example.”
Kuchibhotla earned a Master’s in electrical
engineering from the University of Texas in El Paso in 2007 before becoming a
software engineer at Rockwell Collins in Iowa, said his brother Kiran. He later
moved to Garmin in 2014, which is based in Olathe, Kansas.
“The entire family was happy that both
Srinivas and his wife, Sunayana Dumala, were doing well in the U.S. and after
six years of marriage they were planning to have a baby this year,” said Kiran.
“And all of a sudden this happened — we are shattered.”
The body arrived from the United States at
Hyderabad airport late Monday night where it was received by several officials
from the local states as well as lawmakers.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which runs the
national government, has said that the safety of Indians residing in the United
States will be raised with the U.S. government.
“We express our anguish and grief over the
unfortunate incident in which a great, hard-working, committed young man lost
his life,” said the party general secretary, Muralidhar Rao. “People working in
America are apprehensive about their security.”
Some 300,000 Indians work in the United
States on special H-1B high-skilled visas, largely in the software and tech
industries. The Trump administration has talked about limiting the program.
Schemm reported from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Annie Gowen in New Delhi contributed to this report.
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