A 27-year-old Indian woman, Aishwarya Thatikonda, who worked as a project engineer in Texas, USA, was killed when a gunman opened fire at a crowded mall in Dallas on Saturday, May 6, 2023. Aishwarya was shopping with a friend when they were shot by Mauricio Garcia at the Allen Premium Outlets in Dallas.
At least eight people were killed before Garcia was shot dead by a police officer. Aishwarya had spoken to her family members before the incident, but when they called her back after learning about the shooting, they did not get any response. Her family was informed about her death on Sunday, and they are planning to bring her body back to India.
Aishwarya completed her civil engineering degree from a college in Hyderabad, India, and did her Masters in the US, after which she had been working there for more than two years. The shooting at the mall horrified the country, and the mall management expressed their condolences to the victims’ families.
The shooting was the second-deadliest of the year in the US and came just days after a gunman killed at least one person and injured four others during a visit to an Atlanta medical facility. The US has witnessed at least 198 mass shootings in 2023, according to the gun violence archive.
