HYDERABAD: His parents back home are yet to recover from the shock. The tears are still fresh, and they are yet to make a public appearance. In faraway US, Srinivas Kuchibotla’s wife Sunayana cut a lonely figure during a press conference and a memorial service in Kansas.
At times, her words were drowned in sobs. She was devastated, but the questions she posed to the US government reverberated, not just in the US, but across the world. Srinivas was killed by a navy veteran on Thursday night.
Sunayana demanded answers from the US government. Fighting back tears, she spoke of how her husband had embraced the American Dream. “Now I don’t know what answer I have to give to his mother, of why I was not able to save him.”
Though, like her husband, she had faith in America, this tragedy left her unsure about her safety there. “Do we belong here?” she asked.
All Sunayana wants is an answer from the government. “And I need an answer. I need an answer from the government. I need an answer for everyone out there that what is there they’re gonna do to stop this hate crime. Not just for my husband, who lost his battle in this, but for everyone, all those people, of any race, either Asian, African, American, any race that have lost their loved ones to something bad as this.”
Srinivas, an aviation engineer with GPS-manufacturer Garmin, was shot dead by navy veteran Adam Purinton on Thursday. “We’ve read many times in newspapers of some kind of shooting happening everywhere.
And we always wondered, how safe, or I especially, I was always concerned: ‘Are we doing the right thing of staying in (the) United States of America?’” Sunayana said. “But he always assured me that ‘only good things happen to good people. Always think good, always be good. And good will happen to you’.”
Sunayana revealed she had apprehensions about coming back to the US, but it was her husband who persuaded her to. “The country that he loved so much. I told him many a times, ‘Should we think about going back? Should we think about going to a different country? He said ‘No’. ‘Let’s just see. Let’s wait and see’.”
“I don’t know if this is the right platform to talk about this, but, the government has to make sure that I can come back to this country at my will to pursue his dreams of me being successful...me being successful in any field that I choose. And I have to fulfil his dreams, right here where he started.”
Meanwhile, Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao on Saturday visited and consoled Srinivas’ family at their Bachupally residence. He expressed hope that the body would reach Hyderabad by Monday night and said arrangements in this regard are being made by the government.
“No parent should undergo this kind of grief. I spoke to External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s OSD about getting back the body. His corpse would come to Hyderabad by Monday night,” he said.
The GoFundMe campaign aimed to assist Srinivas’ family received over US $5,23,505 within a day of its launch. It surpassed its target of $1,50,000 on Friday.