Parents of student shot dead in US seek help in sending body back to Telangana

Hyderabad, February 8

The parents of a student from Khammam district of Telangana, who allegedly died of a gunshot wound in the United States, have requested the governments’ help in bringing the body back home.

Akhil Sai Mahankali, 25, from Madhira town in Khammam district, died in the state of Alabama, US, on Monday and an Indian national was arrested and charged with manslaughter, police said.

Mahankali was studying MS in the US. He went there a little over a year ago and did part-time jobs, his parents said on Tuesday.

Their son had said his course would get completed in another three months and that he would get a job.

His weeping mother said she never imagined her son would come back home dead. “We’d sent him for higher studies. Never thought that we would lose our son like this,” she said.

His parents requested the Telangana, India and the US governments to help in sending their son’s body to their native place. His family is planning to conduct the last rites at Miryalaguda.

Police and medical personnel in the US found Akhil Sai Mahankali with a life-threatening gunshot wound at around 9.30pm on Sunday. They took him to the hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead, according to the Montgomery Advertiser, a newspaper.

Both the deceased and the accused are from Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, it said, adding that the latter is now in jail.