Kansas City police yet to trace Telangana student Sharath Koppu’s killer

Police have said it was a case of attempted robbery and have ruled out for now the possibility of it being a hate crime, such as the one in which IT engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed in 2017.

Kansas City police are still looking for the killer of Sharath Koppu, the 26-year-old Indian student fatally shot at a restaurant last week, and haven’t made much headway despite announcing a reward of $10,000 for information leading to an arrest.

Sharath Koppu, a 26-year-old student from Telengana, came to the United States for higher studies in January and was enrolled in a masters class at University of Missouri-Kansas City.(HT Photo)

“There have been no other developments at this time,” Jacob Becchina, a spokesman for Kansas City police, said in an email.

“As of yesterday we had received three tips. We are still working with local media to circulate the surveillance video and asking for anyone who knows the suspect to contact our TIPS hotline 816-474-TIPS.”

Witnesses have said the suspect — there was only one man — was wearing a brown shirt with white stripes.

Police have said it was a case of attempted robbery and have ruled out for now the possibility of it being a hate crime, such as the one in which Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an Indian IT engineer, was killed in 2017.

Koppu was shot while fleeing the gunman, witnesses have said.

The student from Telengana came to the US for higher studies in January and was enrolled in a masters class at University of Missouri - Kansas City. He worked part-time at the restaurant, J’s Fish and Chicken Market, on Prospect Avenue, where he was shot on Friday evening

His relatives have raised more than $50,000 on gofundme.com, a crowd-sourcing website for raising funds, to help the family take the body home to India for last rites.

Officials from the Indian consulate in Chicago are in Kansas City and are in touch with local authorities and family members to help with sending the body to India.

Rajesh Gooty, a community leader and organiser who has been in touch with Indian-American bodies in Kansas City, said the community was in a state of shock over the shooting and was trying to come to terms with it as members step up to “be just around the family at this time and help any which way possible”.

He added, “There was a sense that something may need to be done on sensitising newcomers to the country like Koppu about safety issues they could face here”.