Tragedy waiting to happen

Young Hyderabad techie Srinivas Kuchibhotla was extremely unlucky to be at the wrong place at the wrong time while his friend Alok Madasani and brave onlooker Ian Grillot, who tried to block US Navy veteran Adam W. Purinton, were fortunate to survive an obvious hate crime in Kansas City earlier this week. It’s a terrible irony that the victim of the first such senseless shooting in the Donald Trump era should be an H-1B visa holder from India. Touching aspects have been lent to the tragedy with an unknown American rising to defend a couple of Indians, mistaken for West Asians, and who were under attack from a man who came back to the pub deliberately with his gun to fire on “aliens”.

It may be too early to say that Mr Trump’s immigration policy tilt or the climate of animosity against migrants in a divisive White House campaign led to the incident that, however, is not an unknown phenomenon in a land with liberal gun laws. In fact, the first such hate crime may be portentous as Alt-right and such movements spawned or encouraged by Mr Trump’s rise would probably feel emboldened. How much leeway the new administration will give the gun lobby is the more frightening thought. With a right-wing government firmly in place, it’s only likely that gun ownership will be seen as macho support of the “Make America Great Again” agenda. We must fear for innocent people who have to cope with the unpredictability of living in an agitated and anxious country in these conflicted times.