Professor Gunned Down At UCLA Campus; Murderer Identified As Former Student, Alumnus of IIT-KGP

Los Angeles: A former student of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) known as Mainak Sarkar, shot and killed a professor of the University has been identified as his former doctoral student. In a later development, it was found that the Sarkar also shot dead another woman at her home in Minnesota, drove a car for 3200 km and intended to kill another professor from the university but failed. The series of crime by the 38-year-old Indo-American student took place on Thursday. Sarkar also shot himself dead after committing the murders.

Sources said, Sarkar, who is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, shot and killed Professor William Klug, 39, in an office UCLA before killing himself on Wednesday. Klug was a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at UCLA. Sarkar came to Klug’s office with two pistols and extra ammunition, and accused the professor for stealing his computer code.

The university classes were cancelled on Thursday while hundreds of policemen were deployed at the campus. According to Los Angeles police, they found few documents listing that Sarkar was married to a woman named Ashley Hasti, who turned 31 recently. Police also searched through an active Facebook page of Hasti.  “We believe that Sarkar came to the Los Angeles area very recently, within the last couple of days. He went there to kill two faculties from UCLA. He was only able to find one,” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck told.

On Thursday, thousands of students paid tribute to the dead professor holding blue and yellow battery powered candles on the Westwood campus of UCLA. Student and fellow professors expressed their grief in the parade.