26-year-old student from Telangana shot dead in Kansas

Hyderabad: A 26-year-old student from Telangana has been shot dead by an unidentified person at a restaurant in Kansas City in the US state of Missouri.

Sharath Koppula, who was studying in University of Missouri, Kansas City, was critically injured when the man fired at him. He was rushed to a hospital, where he succumbed.

His friends informed his family over phone on Saturday that the incident occurred on Friday evening (US time).

The identity of the killer, motive behind the killing and other details were not known.

Sharath hailed from Warangal town. After engineering, he was employed at a software firm in Hyderabad. He moved to the US to do MS this year.

Sharath`s father Ram Mohan, who is employed in BSNL, has appealed to Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Telangana`s NRI Minister K.T. Rama Rao to help in bringing the body home.

The incident comes a year after another Indian techie from Hyderabad, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, was killed at a bar in Kansas City in what looks like a racially motivated hate crime.

A US Navy veteran, Adam W. Purinton, shot Srinivas Kuchibhotla dead on February 22, 2017, after shouting "get out of my country`. In May, he was sentenced to life.