January 01, 2026 04:46 am (IST)
Follow us:
facebook-white sharing button
twitter-white sharing button
instagram-white sharing button
youtube-white sharing button
No third party involved: India govt sources refute China’s Operation Sindoor ceasefire claim | Amit Shah blasts TMC over border fencing; Mamata fires back on Pahalgam and Delhi blast | 'A profound loss for Bangladesh politics': Sheikh Hasina mourns Khaleda Zia’s death | PM Modi mourns Khaleda Zia’s death, hails her role in India-Bangladesh ties | Bangladesh’s first female Prime Minister Khaleda Zia passes away at 80 | India rejects Pakistan’s Christmas vandalism remarks, cites its ‘abysmal’ minority record | Minority under fire: Hindu houses torched in Bangladesh village | Supreme Court puts Aravalli redefinition on hold amid uproar, awaits new expert committee | Supreme Court strikes! Kuldeep Sengar’s bail in Unnao case suspended amid public outcry | From bitter split to big reunion! Pawars join hands again for high-stakes civic battle

Sarkar, the LA gunman, who killed his professor, was from West Bengal

| | Jun 03, 2016, at 07:25 pm
Kolkata, June 3 (IBNS) Mainak Sarkar, the gunman who shot dead the University of California-Los Angeles professor, William Klug and a woman, believed to be his own wife, was originally a resident of West Bengal.

Though details of the full background of the 38-year-old man, who also killed himself is yet to be known, IBNS has tracked him as a boy from Dugrapur in Burdwan district where he studied in St. Michael School and Bidhan Chandra Institution before getting into IIT Kharagpur.

He passed out from IIT Kharagpur in 2000 in Aerospace Engineering.

His father worked in MAMC, a company that ceased to operate at the beginning of this century.

Sarkar's online profile  suggests  that he  he worked for Infosys in Bengaluru between 2000 and 2001.

Sarkar moved to the US in 2001 where he completed his Master’s degree from Stanford University and then worked as a research assistant at University of Texas. 

He also briefly worked as a software developer before moving on to enroll at UCLA.

Sarkar mentioned Klug’s name as a ‘mentor’ in his doctoral dissertation which he submitted in 2013.

 Recently he wrote a blog on social media accusing Klug of stealing his codes and passing it on to other students.

On Wednesday, Sarkar shot dead Klug after killing his wife Ashley Hasit and travelling  2,000-mile (3,220-kilometer) to Los Angeles from Minnesota, according to reports appeared in local newspapers.

He  shot Klug multiple times in a small office in UCLA Engineering Building 4 before taking his own life.

He was armed with two semi-automatic pistols and multiple rounds of ammunition.

When detectives arrived at Klug’s office on Wednesday morning and found  his and Sarkar's bodies, they also recovered a note from Sarkar listing his home address in Minnesota and asking someone to “check on my cat.”

Authorities went to the woman’s home in Brooklyn Park, a Minneapolis suburb, and found her body just after midnight Thursday.

Support Our Journalism

We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism

IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.

Support objective journalism for a small contribution.