WASHINGTON: A 38-year-old Sikkimese was among the seven killed by a disgruntled college student who carried out an execution-type killing spree in a religious college in California that also left an Indian-American girl injured.
Tshering Rinzing Bhutia, 38, of San Francisco, was killed when the gunman stole his car outside the school on Monday morning. Bhutia was born in Sikkim and lived alone in San Francisco's North Beach neighbourhood and worked nights cleaning terminals in city's airport, Oakland Tribune reported.
He was also studying nursing at Oikos, a tiny Christian college and also worked in restaurants. The Indian-American who was injured was Dawinder Kaur, who was shot in her right arm near elbow.
She is nursing her injuries at a local hospital in Oakland, where the shooting incident happened on Monday, sending shock waves across the country. The alleged suspect has been arrested by the Oakland police, which local media outlets identified as 43-year-old One Goh - an American of Korean origin. Several of the victims were students of the Oikos University - a small religious college in the Southern Californian city.
According to the daily, Kaur told her family members that the alleged gunman, who had been absent from his class for past several months, suddenly appeared on Monday and ordered all the students to line up against a wall. "He showed his gun and then the students started running," Kaur told relatives.
Oakland police chief Howard Jordan said the shooter walked into the single-storey building, took a receptionist hostage and went looking for a particular female administrator. The man walked into a classroom, lined up students against a wall and shot them one by one, Jordan said.
"This was a calculated, cold-blooded execution in the classroom," Jordan CNNsaid.
After the shooting, the man left the classroom, reloaded his semi-automatic weapon and returned, he said.
Giving further details of the incident, the daily said Kaur was shot in the arm as she helped a friend who had fallen on the classroom's floor; she then ran outside and called her brother, Paul Singh. "She told me that a guy went crazy and she got shot. She was running. She was crying; she was bleeding ," Singh told Oakland Tribune.
Five people were declared dead on the spot, while two of the five wounded succumbed to injuries at the hospital.
Balvir Singh, Kaur's father, said that he was lucky that his daughter survived.
"The family is lucky she is alive", he said. "The gunman should get full consequences that he deserves for doing this to these people," he added. Pastor Jong Kim, who founded the school about 10 years ago, said that the shooter was a former nursing student, though he was unsure whether the man had been expelled or dropped.
