At least nine people, including the gunman, were killed and seven were injured when a busy afternoon of shopping turned into tragedy in Allen, Texas
Aishwarya Thatikonda was working as project manager in a company called Perfect General Contractors LLC in Texas. (Linkedin & Twitter)
A 27-year-old engineer from Telangana was among nine people killed, including the gunman, on Saturday, 6 May, in a mass shooting in Texas in the US when the accused opened fire outside a crowded mall.
The victim, identified as Aishwarya Thatikonda, was a resident of the Saroornagar area in Hyderabad.
She is reportedly the daughter of Narsi Reddy, who is serving as a judge in a court in the Ranga Reddy district.
Seven people are also reportedly injured by the accused — Mauricio Garcia (33) — who was later shot down by the Allen city police.
Her friend asked the Telangana government and the US Embassy for help.
“The NRI Department and higher officials of the Telangana government are in talks with the US Consulate in Hyderabad to bring Aishwarya’s body back,” a PRO of the Telangana NRI Affairs Minister KT Rama Rao told South First.
A press release from the Allen city police department. (Twitter)
As per reports, another Indian — Aishwarya’s male friend Shreyas Reddy and roommate — was injured in the shooting and was said to be receiving treatment at McKinney Medical Hospital.
He is among the seven people being treated in the hospital of whom three are said to be in critical condition.
The gunman reportedly began firing an AR-15 — a lightweight, magazine-fed, gas-operated semi-automatic assault rifle — around 3:30 pm on Saturday as scores of shoppers filled the outdoor mall, which is about 25 miles north of Dallas and has more than 120 stores.
According to Aishwarya’s LinkedIn profile, she was working as a project manager in a company called Perfect General Contractors LLC in Texas.
Aishwarya Thatikonda’s family was in deep shock after receiving the news of her death.
“Her father even experienced seizures after hearing the news of Aishwarya’s death,” one of her friends from school and college, Sai Vikas, posted on social media and confirmed the developments to South First.
It is my friend Aishwarya Tatikonda who died in Texas mass shooting. Her father is a judge in Ranga Reddy Court. Her face cannot be identified due to triggered bullets on her face. I would like you to request the US embassy to send her body to India as soon as possible.@KTRBRS pic.twitter.com/ifbN4DbQFm
— Sai Vikas (@vikkyszone) May 8, 2023
Aishwarya Thatikonda obtained a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Osmania University and pursued her MS in construction management from Eastern Michigan University.
Meanwhile, video footage across social media showed hundreds of people exiting the area at the time of the shooting while several others went into storage areas and hid when they heard gunshots.
Aishwarya’s friend Sai Vikas claimed that her face could not be identified “due to triggered bullets on her face”.
Noting that the authorities had to match the fingerprints to identify her, he requested the US Embassy on social media to help transport her body to India.
Meanwhile, taking to social media, Vikas also shared a video of their last meeting.
Our last meet 💔 pic.twitter.com/y2VMNYpbQ9
— Sai Vikas (@vikkyszone) May 8, 2023
He also requested the Telangana government and the state’s MA&UD Minister KT Rama Rao to look into the matter.
BRS MLC K Kavitha expressed her condolences to Aishwarya’s family. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her family in this time of grief,” she said in a post on Twitter.
Speaking to South First, Sai Vikas said, “This is completely shocking for all of us. She was a really bold and courageous girl. All of our friends used to call her Rowdy because of her strong mentality. Her birthday is on coming 18 May.”
He added: “As there are fewer opportunities for civil engineering background, she went for MS and after completing that she got a job there.”
He also said: “The gunman started shooting all of a sudden when they entered the mall. Shreyas is on the ventilator and is still unconscious, but his vitals are completely normal.”
Recollecting his last meeting with Aishwarya, Vikas said, “The last she visited India was in 2022, for her elder brother’s marriage. She was happy doing her job and being independent. She recently also got an H-1B visa and called me to express happiness. She also promised that once she was independent and earning, she would donate to my Hyderabad-based NGO HHN Foundation. She kept her promise and continuously donated for around 1-1.5 years.”
About his appeal to KTR and US Embassy, Vikas said he received a call from a Telangana government official.
“The official asked for a copy of Aishwarya’s passport and Aadhar Card, but her passport is submitted to the US government,” he said.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, a database of shootings in the US, there have been at least 199 mass shootings this year so far.
The crowdsourced information website Mass Shooting Tracker, however, pegs the number at nearly 250, at a rate of nearly two per day, and we are not even halfway through the year!
Incidentally, Mass Shooting Tracker defines a mass shooting as “an incident of violence in which four or more people are shot”.
A condolence message from Texas department of public safety. (Twitter)
The latest Texas mall shooting was the second-deadliest shooting thus far this year in the US, after the Monterey Park, California, massacre in which a gunman killed 11 people on 21 January in a ballroom.
The Allen Premium Outlets tragedy occurred just a couple of weeks before the first anniversary of the Uvalde, Texas School massacre on 24 May, 2022, in which 19 children and two adults were killed by a gunman at Robb Elementary School.
The gun used in that crime as well as in the Texas mall massacre was the AR-15, an assault-style weapon that was initially meant to be used on the battlefield, but is freely available in many parts of the US and particularly in Texas, which has arguably the most lax gun laws in the country.
In Uvalde, too, parents of children had to be asked for their DNA to identify the bodies of the deceased because the bullets that hit the heads of the victims rendered them incapable of visual identification.
The Texas mall shooting comes a little more than a week after a man in the same US state shot dead five people from the same family because they complained about his shooting being loud enough to wake their child.
The police found the accused, identified as 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, four days later as he hid under a pile of laundry around 30 km from his own house.
Apr 28, 2024
Apr 28, 2024
Apr 28, 2024
Apr 28, 2024
Apr 28, 2024
Apr 28, 2024
