Indian-American kills woman, varsity prof

Los Angeles, June 2 

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An Indian-American and former University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) graduate student shot dead a woman at her home in Minnesota before he drove almost 3,200 km to his alma mater, killed a professor and took his own life, the police said on Thursday.

Mainak Sarkar (38), an alumnus of the IIT-Kharagpur, had intended to kill a second professor in addition to engineering professor William Klug (39), at an office on the campus, prompting a two-hour lockdown on Wednesday.

LA Police chief Charlie Beck said a search of Sarkar’s St Paul, Minnesota, home turned up a “kill list” that included the name of the woman found dead nearby, as well as the name of the other UCLA professor, who was not harmed. “He went there to kill two faculty from UCLA. He was only able to find one.”

The attack appeared to be provoked by Sarkar’s belief that Klug had stolen computer code from him, a March blog post that appears to be written by him said.

“William Klug is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy,” Sarkar wrote on March 10.  “UCLA says there is no truth to this,” Beck said of the alleged theft of code. — Agencies