Bad times for Indians abroad

Udumula Sudhakar Reddy
8th Nov 2008
These are not good times for Indians studying and working abroad. The financial crisis in the US and other countries is taking its toll on Indians working there. At the same time, many Indian students are also falling victim to hate crimes.
Sociologists predict that there will be more suicides as the recession deepens and people lose jobs.
After suffering losses in the October stock market collapse, an NRI, Karthik Rajaram, killed his wife, three sons and his motherin-law before shooting himself. He had made more than $1.2 million in a Londonbased venture fund and lost it all in the collapse.
Last week, the wife and two kids of a software programmer, Mr Nerusu Laskshminivasa Rao, were found murdered in Detroit. He too had lost his job recently.
“Job loss, capital erosion and debt are creating fear among the NRI community and are leading to suicides,” said Mr P. Vijay Reddy, a financial planner.
Even as NRIs grapple with the financial crisis, Indian students have also become deeply insecure for other reasons.
Six students from the state alone have been killed in foreign countries in the last two years. The latest instance was the death of Arpana Jinega, a software engineer in Seattle .
Medical student, A. Srinivas, and Ph.D students, K. Chandrashekar Reddy and A. Kiran Kumar were killed in 2007. In September, T. Soumya Reddy and her cousin Vikram Reddy were killed in Southern Illinois.
“The victims are not just from AP,” said the CID IG, Mr S. Umapati, who looks after the NRI-wing. “But as we have lots of people working there, there are more victims from AP.” Meanwhile, the families of these victims usually don’t get to know anything about the progress of the investigation.
“We have not heard from anybody about the progress of the probe,” said Mr A. Rajaiah, father of A. Kiran Kumar.
Soumya Reddy and Vikram Reddy’s families too have similar complaints.