California: An Indian student, upset over his low grades, Wednesday committed suicide after shooting to death his professor at University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, media reports say.
The student, identified as Mainak Sarkar, was an engineering student at the school. His victim was William Klug, who was working with a team to develop a computer-generated virtual heart, media reports said.
While a section of the press reported that the gunman may have been a graduate student, a television channel cited a law enforcement source to report that the gunman was “despondent” about his grades.
Thirty-nine-year-old Klug was associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering who studied the interaction between mechanics and biology. He was married with two young children.
Los Angeles Police Department chief Charlie Beck confirmed two men were dead in the murder-suicide incident and a gun was found at the scene.
The shooting happened shortly before 10 am. in Boelter Hall, which is part of the Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, according to the university.
The entire campus was placed under lockdown. About an hour after the shooting was reported, police confirmed two dead people were found inside a small room of the engineering building.
University officials said classes would resume on Thursday and counselors will be available for students, faculty and staff.
The deaths were under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Klug earned his under-graduate degree in engineering physics from Westmont College in 1997, his Master’s in civil engineering at UCLA in 1999 and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from California Institute of Technology in 2003.
UCLA, with more than 43,000 students, is one of the more well-regarded schools in the University of California system.
The Times of India reported that Sarkar, 38, was a student of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal. He had been working a PhD at UCLA for several years.
In a March 10 blog slugged, “Long Dark Tunnel,” Sarkar wrote: “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.”
He also said that he was Klug’s Phd student. “We had personal differences. He cleverly stole all my code and gave it to another student. He made me really sick.”
On Wednesday, Sarkar walked into Klug’s office and shot him dead. He then took his own life. Klug was only a year older than Sarkar.
Sarkar worked briefly as a software developer in Bangalore before going to the US in 2003 in to earn a master’s degree from Stanford.
UCLA has a large contingent of students from South Asia. The current dean of the engineering school, Jayathi Murthy, and her predecessor Vijay Dhir are of Indian-origin.