Family, friends bid tearful adieu to Indian killed in US

Srinivas Kuchibhotla (PHOTO: gofund.com)


Family members, relatives, friends and people from different walks of life bid a tearful adieu to Indian techie Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who was shot dead in the US on February 22 in a suspected hate crime.

His last rites were performed at the cremation ground in Jubilee Hills here on Tuesday.

K Madhusudhana Sastry performed the last rites of his son as some of the mourners including the techie's friends were seen carrying placards with slogans like "down with racism".

Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary Muralidhar Rao, other leaders from the BJP, TRS and other parties, and actor couple Jeevitha and Rajasekhar paid their last respects.

The body was brought from Kuchibhotla's house in Bachupally, on the city's outskirts.

As his final journey began, the engineer's parents were inconsolable while his wife Sunayana Dumala, who arrived with the mortal remains on Monday night, broke down as she had his last glimpse.

The body was brought by a cargo flight while Sunayana, her brother, sister-in-law and another relative reached by a passenger flight.

Mourners poured in at his residence through the night and Tuesday morning to pay their last respects.

Kuchibhotla, 32, was killed and Alok Madasani was injured when Adam W. Purinton, a white man who earlier served in the US Navy, shot them at the Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, Kansas state, on February 22.

Purinton got into an argument with the two and hurled racial slurs. He yelled "get out of my country", "terrorist" before shooting them.

Kuchibhotla of Hyderabad and his colleague Madasani from Warangal district in Telangana were working as aviation programme managers at Garmin, an MNC.