By IANS,
Hyderabad : In yet another attack on Indian students in the United States, a student from Andhra Pradesh was shot by some unidentified people in Tennessee.
Shashank Pulluru, who was admitted to a hospital, hails from Hanamkonda town in Warangal district of Andhra Pradesh.
He was studying MS at the Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro in Tennessee.
According to information received by the family, he was shot by some African Americans when he, along with two of his friends, returned to their apartment after the classes Saturday.
According to Shashank’s uncle P. Ashok, they received a phone call early Sunday from one of Shashank’s friends that he was injured when some Africans opened fire at him. The motive of the shooting is not known but the student is stated to be out of danger.
Shashank’s parents and other family members were crying inconsolably after receiving the call. “We have not received any further communication and we are anxiously waiting for some more information,” said Ashok.
The family urged the Andhra Pradesh government to inquire about his condition and ensure that he gets the necessary medical treatment.
Shashank had gone to the US last year to pursue MS. His father P. Sudhakar works as registrar in the cooperatives department while mother Arundhati is a teacher.
Earlier, another Indian student from Andhra Pradesh Soumya Reddy and her cousin were murdered in a university in the US.
Shashank’s family members were planning to leave for the US and local officials promised to arrange emergency visas for them.
The attack on the student came close on the heels of murder of a student, who hailed from Hyderabad, in the US.
Arpana Jinaga, 24, who was working as software engineer in EMC Corporation in Seattle, was found murdered in her apartment in Redmond, a suburb of Seattle, early this month.
She was the sixth student from Andhra Pradesh to be killed under mysterious circumstances in the US in less than a year. The series of killings has worried the families of the students.
T. Soumya Reddy, a post-graduate student, was killed by unidentified assailants in Chicago in September this year.
Soumya, 23, who was pursuing MS in electrical engineering at the Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville campus, was found dead in a car near a lake. Her cousin Vikram Reddy, 27, who was a software engineer in Chicago, was also found shot dead in the lake.
Srinivas, a PG medical student from Karimnagar, was found murdered in Pennsylvania in March.
A. Kirankumar and K. Chandrasekhar Reddy, both PhD students, were shot dead in their apartment at Louisiana University in December 2007.