Mainak Sarkar, an Indian engineer, shot his former PhD supervisor and himself dead in an incident that shook the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on Wednesday. Sarkar is also suspected to have killed another woman, before reaching the engineering school at the UCLA dressed in black.
The Los Angeles Police Department has not given out more details about Sarkar but he is listed on the UCLA website as a member of a computational biomechanics research group run by William Klug, the 39-year-old victim who was an engineering professor.
Sarkar, 38, drove to Los Angeles from Minnesota with two guns and killed Professor Klug before taking his own life, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said. When the authorities searched Sarkar’s home, they found the “kill list” with the names of Professor Klug, another UCLA professor and the woman, he said. The woman was found shot dead at her home in a nearby Minnesota town. Mr. Beck said he could not release her name. The other professor on the list is safe.
Mr. Beck said Sarkar’s dispute with Klug was tied to his thinking that the professor released intellectual property that harmed him.
A March 10 blog post purportedly by Sarkar, as reported by a local reporter for a website after the incident, said
“William Klug, UCLA professor 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…My name is Mainak Sarkar. I was this guy’s PhD student. We had personal differences. He cleverly stole all my code and gave it another student. He made me really sick. Your enemy is your enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust.”
This post could not be retrieved or verified, however.
Police asked for the public’s help to find the car he drove to Los Angeles, a 2003 Nissan Sentra. Initial reports from the scene set off widespread fears of an attempted mass shooting on campus, bringing a response of hundreds of heavily armed officers.
(with inputs from agencies)
