Hyderabad student shot dead in US

Prashanth Goinaka, who had taken up a part-time job of a cashier at a convenience store SK Foods only four days ago, was shot dead on Sunday by two unidentified assailants who had walked into the store posing as customers and snatched the cash. Oklahoma City Police say they are investigating the man's death as a homicide as there was trauma to the body.

His family, which received the news late Monday, is in a state of shock and is not ready to believe that the youth who left for the US barely two months ago to study for an MBA is no more. According to the information received by Prashanth's family, who reside in Santoshnagar area here, he was killed around 7.15 p.m. Sunday local time.

Prashanth's father G. Rajaiah and mother Bharathi were devastated after hearing the shocking news of their only son. His only sister Swathi is pursuing her MBBS here.
"I can't believe this. He left only two months ago for studies and now  we heard that he is no more. Oh God. Why this happened to him," said Rajaiah, an employee in a medical and health department, while crying inconsolably.

"We have received the information that two blacks shot him dead for money," he said. Prashanth, a B.Com graduate of St Thomas College, Dilsukhnagar, had  gone to the US Jan 25 this year to realise his cherished dream of studying for his MBA. He was a student at the International Technological University in California. Last week, he went to Oklahoma after the university permitted him to take up a part-time job.

Family members said he had informed his parents over the phone that he got a job and that he would call them to the US. Prashanth initially joined the merchant navy but could not cope with the sea sickness. He was also a good dancer and worked as a junior artist in some Telugu movies, family members said.

The family has requested the state government to make arrangements to bring his body home. "I am requesting Chief Minister K. Rosaiah with  folded hands to help the family by making arrangements to bring his body home as early as possible," said Prashanth's cousin Chandrasekhar. There have been a spate of shooting incidents involving Telugu students and techies in the US during the past three years.

Rudraraju Sudheer Kumar, a mechanical engineer, was found murdered in his flat in Atlanta in February last year. Akshay Vishal, 26, a software engineer from Hyderabad, was shot dead by unidentified people in Little Rock, Arkansas Jan 13. Arpana B. Jinaga, 24, a software engineer at EMC Corporation in Seattle, was found murdered in her apartment November 3, 2008. T. Soumya Reddy, 23, who was pursuing her MS in electrical engineering at the Southern Illinois University and was found dead in a car near a lake in Chicago in September, 2008. Her cousin Vikram Reddy, 27, who was a software engineer in Chicago, was also found shot dead nearby. Srinivas, a medical student, was found murdered in Pennsylvania in March, 2008. A. Kirankumar and K. Chandrasekhar Reddy, both PhD students, were shot dead by intruders in their apartment at Louisiana University in December 2007.