Indian engineer among victims of US mall shooting

A young security guard and an engineer from India were among the victims of Saturday’s deadly shooting at a shopping mall near Dallas, Texas.

Eight people, including children, were killed in the attack, which also left seven wounded.

The 33-year-old perpetrator was shot and killed by a police officer who was nearby responding to an unrelated call.

Police are now investigating whether the attacker was motivated by right-wing extremist ideology.

While information about the victims is still trickling out in the wake of the shooting, two of the dead have so far been identified.

Here’s what we know so far.

One of the victims of the attack was Christian LaCour, a 20-year-old security guard.

His sister, Brianna Smith, told ABC News that he was on-duty at the mall in Allen, Texas when the shooting took place.

“He was a really sweet kid,” Ms Smith told ABC. “I’m sad he’s gone.”

On Facebook, Mr LaCour’s grandmother, Sandra Montgomery, described him as a “beautiful soul” with “goals for his future”.

“Please pray for my family,” she wrote. “They are very close and I know this is almost unbearable.”

Local news outlet WFAA has confirmed that one of the other victims was Aishwarya Thatikonda, an Indian engineer who lived in the Dallas suburb of McKinney. It is unclear how old she was.

According to a family representative, Ms Thatikonda was at the Allen mall with a friend when the shooting took place. Her friend was wounded in the shooting.

Her family is now planning to repatriate her remains to India.

Ms Thatikonda’s LinkedIn profile shows that she graduated with an undergraduate degree in civil engineering in India in 2018, before receiving a Master’s degree in construction management from Eastern Michigan University in the US in 2020.

For the last two years, she was working for a Dallas-based contracting firm.