Kansas shooting raises fears among Indian-Americans

The shooting comes as some members of US minority groups have expressed unease with the political and social climate in the United States following the election Donald Trump as president.

Sunayana Dumala holds her heart while talking about her late husband, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, at the Garmin headquarters in Olathe, Kansas, on February 24, 2017. Kuchibhotla was shot dead in a bar in OlShow more

LOS ANGELES // The shooting death of an Indian engineer and the wounding of another in a possible hate crime at a Kansas bar has raised fears among members of the area’s fast-growing Indian-American community.

The gunman, US navy veteran Adam Purinton, 51, has been charged with the premeditated murder in Olathe, just outside Kansas City, of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, and the attempted murder of Alok Madasani, also 32.

Mr Madasani told The New York Times that he and Kuchibhotla, both employees of Kansas-based GPS device-maker Garmin, were on the patio of the bar on Wednesday evening when Mr Purinton asked them what type of visa they had and whether they were in the country illegally.

Mr Madasani said he went to get a manager, but when he returned the man was already being escorted out.

Mr Purinton later came back with a gun and shot Mr Madasani, Kuchibhotla and Ian Grillot, 24, a bystander who tried intervene. According to witnesses, Mr Purinton shouted “get out of my country” before opening fire. He was arrested hours later in Missouri.

Mr Madasani has been released from hospital but Mr Grillot, 24, is still under treatment.

Several members of the Kansas City area’s Indian-American community said the attack had forced them to think about their safety.

“The main reaction is shock, because this is home,” said Samarpita Bajpai, 45, who runs a non-profit Indian dance company.

Ms Bajpai said that for the first time in nearly 20 years of living in the Kansas City area she would try to avoid being out late at night.

The shooting comes as some members of US minority groups have expressed unease with the political and social climate in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Centre said in a report this month that hate groups proliferated last year as Donald Trump’s bid for the US presidency energised the radical right. Mr Trump has promised to ban certain groups of travellers and has been especially vocal about the threat posed by Muslim extremist groups.

The greater Kansas City area, which straddles the border between the states of Missouri and Kansas, is home to about 2 million people with an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Indian-Americans, although exact figures are not available, said Vijay Ainapurapu, 45, the former president of the India Association of Kansas City.

Mr Ainapurapu, who works in software at Sprint Corp, said the local Indian-American community had grown about tenfold since he arrived in the Kansas City area in 2001.

Mr Ainapurapu, who came to the United States in 1998 and previously lived in Texas and California, said Kansas City had been “as welcoming as any other place in America.”

The number of Indian immigrants in the US has spiked from about 200,000 in the 1980s to more than 2 million today, as Indian-born scientists and engineers fuelled the American tech boom. India received more visas in the US for non-immigrant high-skilled workers, about 70 per cent, than any other country in 2014.

Ajay Sood, 50, who teaches courses in Indian culture, said he often found that native-born Americans were ignorant of his background.

Mistaking the ethnicity of Indian Americans was a hot topic after the Kansas City Star reported that the suspect said after fleeing that he had shot two Middle Eastern men.

“Most of the Americans who have never travelled outside the US, they cannot identify who’s a Pakistani, who’s an Indian, who’s an Afghani and who’s a Sikh,” Mr Sood said.

Akshay Anand, 34, a jewellery store owner, said he would avoid areas where he might feel at risk, including what he called neighbourhoods with low education levels.

“Everybody’s going to be extremely cautious,” said Mr Anand, who lives a short drive from where the shooting occurred. “I think it’s going to take time for this to settle in.”

* Reuters and Associated Press