April 17, 2007
Indian Professor Among 33 killed
in US Campus Massacre
Washington/New Delhi
As many as 33 people, including an Indian American professor of
engineering, were killed and at least 15 injured when a gunman went
on a shooting spree in a top US university campus Monday morning
before turning the gun on himself.
The gunman, reportedly a Chinese student, went on two shooting
sprees nearly two-and-hour hours apart after a quarrel with his
Taiwanese girlfriend at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University - Virginia Tech for short - at Blacksburg, Virginia,
around 430 km from Washington D.C.
The university's police department received a 911 call around 7:15
a.m. and rushed to the West Ambler Johnston Residence Hall in the
sprawling campus. They found two gunshot victims - a male and a
female - in a dormitory room in the Hall.
Soon, Blacksburg Police joined Virginia Tech Police Department in
the homicide investigations.
Even as they were interviewing students and faculty regarding the
incident, the university police received another 911 call from the
Norris Hall of the university to respond to a gun attack. The Norris
Hall houses faculty offices, classrooms and laboratories.
By the time police reached the spot, the gunman, who had barricaded
the front doors, had opened fire upon the unsuspecting faculty and
students and then took his own life.
According to a Virginia Tech statement, there was never any
engagement between the police and the gunman.
Among those killed in the Norris Hall incident was G.V. Loganathan,
an Indian origin professor of civil and environmental engineering at
the university. He was taking a class when the incident happened.
His family, who lived with him in the university campus, later
informed his relatives at his ancestral home in Erode district of
Tamil Nadu about his death.
The professor's distraught brother told TV news channels that he
didn't know when they would get Loganathan's body.
"The government has not contacted us till now," he said Tuesday
afternoon India time.
The professor's inconsolable mother told TV channels that he had
called home only a couple of days back to enquire about his family
members.
An engineering graduate from Madras University, Loganathan later did
his MS from IIT Kanpur and PhD from Purdue University in the US. He
had joined Virginia Tech in 1982 and had received the Dean's award
for Excellence in Teaching in 1998.
According to another report, an Indian student, Minal Panchal, has
also gone missing after the incident.
Meanwhile, all classes in Virginia Tech have been cancelled for
Tuesday. A public gathering is also being planned at 2 p.m. Tuesday
at the Casel Coliseum in the campus.
The university authorities have arranged for counseling services for
students and have advised them to contact their parents.
According to a posting on the university's website, the names of the
deceased will not be released till the entire investigative process
is complete.
US President George W. Bush has expressed sorrow over the massacre
and sent his condolences to the families of the victims and the
university community.
"Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning,"
Bush said. "When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in
every American classroom and every American community."
University president Charles W. Steger said, "The university was
struck today with a tragedy of monumental proportions... The
university is shocked and horrified that this would befall our
campus. I want to extend my deepest, sincerest and most profound
sympathies to the families of these victims, which include
students."
Spread over 2,600 acres, Virginia Tech is a 125-year-old public land
grant university. Over 25,000 students from 100 countries are
enrolled.
There are a large number of Indian students and faculty. The Indian
Students Association, with a membership base of 500, is the largest
such foreign students' body in the university.
DPA adds: Virginia Tech student Chen Chia-hao told Taiwan cable TV
channel CTI that the shooting rampage Monday morning began after the
gunman, believed to be a student from China, killed his girlfriend
in the student dormitory after an argument.
"They had a big quarrel in the West Ambler Johnston Hall and he shot
her. Then the RA (dorm supervisor) came, and he shot the RA," Chen
told CTI by phone.
From the student dorm, the gunman then went to the classroom
building Norris Hall, where he locked up the front and back door of
a classroom with an iron chain, Chen said.
About 25 students were taking a German-language class in that
classroom. The gunman opened fired on the students, before turning
the gun on himself.
"He opened fire to the back of his head and blew up the front part
of his head, which has made it difficult to identify him," he said.
Boloji.com is owned and managed by Boloji Media Inc Privacy Policy |
Disclaimer
No part of this Internet site may
be reproduced without prior written permission of the copyright holder.
