Kolkata: People hold candlelight vigil against Kansas shooting

Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], Feb 25 (ANI): A day after an Indian-origin engineer, Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead in Kansas, dozens of people held a candlelight vigil at Mother Teresa's statue here, seeking justice against the hate crime. Number of people gathered here holding placard which stated that, "We do not support politics of hate." Referring the incident very upsetting, Trinamool Congress Party (TMC) leader Derek O'Brien said that, "As to the sad incidents which have been happening in the U.S, especially the Kansas shooting yesterday, we condemn this politics of hate." He further said that the people want a world of love and peace. Two Indian engineers- Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani- were shot in a Kansas bar after the shooter hurled racial slurs at them. Kuchibhotla was killed while Madasani was wounded, along with a 24-year-old man who had tried to apprehend the gunman. The accused, Adam W. Purinton, a Navy Veteran has been charged with premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder. The possible hate crime has raised new alarms about a climate of hostility toward foreigners in the United States, where President Donald Trump has made clamping down on immigration a central plank of his "America first" agenda. However, the White House has attempted to downplay notions that there was any correlation between the incident and President Donald Trump's stance on immigrants. Noting that the incident was tragic indeed, White House spokesperson Sean Spicer asserted that it was "absurd" to draw parallels between with the President's rhetoric. "Obviously, any loss of life is tragic, but I'm not going to get into, like, to suggest that there's any correlation I think is a bit absurd. So I'm not going to go any further than that," Spicer said. (ANI)