A 25-year-old student haling from Warangal was shot dead in a restaurant in the Kansas City of the USA on Friday.
The youth was identified as Sharath Koppu, whose family stays in Ameerpet in the city. He was pursuing his masters degree at the University of Missouri in Kansas. The shooting took place around 7 p.m. local time, in which he was wounded and shifted to a nearby hospital, where he was declared brought dead.
Sharath’s uncle Sadashiv told The Hindu that on Saturday morning the latter’s friends informed them of the shooting and the shifting of Sharath to a hospital. They then met Director-General of Police M Mahendar Reddy, requesting him to find out further information about him. The relatives also urged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and IT Minister KT Rama Rao on Twitter for further assistance in the matter.
The relatives took up crowd-sourcing for raising funds to bring back the mortal remains of the youth to India and quoted a local media report as saying that Sharath was fatally wounded in a shooting in a Kansas City restaurant on Friday and around 7 p.m. the local police got information about the shooting in J’s Fish and Chicken Market at 5412 Prospect Ave and the victim was described as being in his 20s or 30s.
According to a report in local media in the US, Capt. Lionel Colón with Kansas City police said it was unclear how the shooter or shooters had left the scene. “Right now, there’s nobody in custody, no suspect information,” he said.
In a brief video clip, Mr Colón said that Kansas City fire personnel arrived and transported Sharath to a hospital, where he died. Two witnesses, Carl Bradley and Lemmie Dean, who were in a nearby motel, said they heard five gunshots coming from the direction of the restaurant. By the time they came out, the suspect had fled, the officer said.
After obtaining his engineering degree from Vasavi Engineering College, Sharath had left for the US six months ago to pursue masters degree and was working in a restaurant, said his uncle. An F1 type US visa was issued to him on December 15 last year. The victim’s father works with the BSNL in Hyderabad.
