US President Donald Trump has reacted, through his press secretary Sean Spicer, to the shooting incident at a Kansas city bar which left Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla dead and his friend Alok Madasani injured last Wednesday.
The White House has said that early reports regarding the apparent hate crime were “disturbing”. The statement comes on a day when Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar embarks upon a four-day visit to the US to discuss the issues of H-1B visas and reports of violence against Indians.
Mr Spicer referred to the incident while giving a statement about the alleged hate crime incidents against the Jewish community in the United States. The press secretary said that there is no space for violence based on religion and ethnicity.
“From our country’s founding, we’ve been dedicated to protecting the freedom of our citizens’ rights to worship. No one in America should feel afraid to follow the religion of their choosing freely and openly. The President has dedicated to preserving this originating principle of our nation,” Mr Spicer said.
“And while we’re at it, I don’t want to get ahead of law enforcement, but I was asked the other day about the story in Kansas, the shooting in Kansas. While the story is evolving, early reports out of Kansas are equally disturbing,” the White House press secretary said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has joined local law enforcement agencies to investigate the incident that has shocked the Indian-American community and has affected prospective students and employees.
However, President Donald Trump has not directly condemned the Kansas incident, which evoked a sharp response from Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
