Grad student from India killed in armed robbery in Kansas City

Sharath Koppu, a student at the University of Missouri Kansas City was shot and killed Friday by a robber at J's Fish and Chicken Market in Kansas City. (Kansas City Police Department)

A "gifted student" from India was shot and killed while working behind the counter of a Missouri fast-food joint during a robbery, according to reports.

The stick-up man shot Sharath Koppu, a 25-year-old graduate student at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, in the back at J’s Fish and Chicken Market in Kansas City Friday as Koppu tried to flee, the Kansas City Star reported Saturday.

"He had the same dreams like everyone else, to make it BIG in the land of opportunity,” his cousin Raghu Chowdavaram said in a solicitation on GoFundMe for funds to transport Koppu’s body back to India, the paper reported.

"Little did anybody know that life is about to take a big unfortunate turn on a fateful day of July 6th 2018," Chowdavaram said.

UMKC Chancellor C. Mauli Agrawal said in an email Saturday that Koppu was a “gifted student who had many friends among student and faculty,” KSHB-TV reported. He was working on a master’s degree in computer science.

Kansas City police on Saturday released surveillance video from inside the restaurant of the suspected shooter, Fox4KC reported.

Koppu arrived in the U.S. from Hyderabad, where he was a software engineer, the Financial Express in India reported.

KANSAS MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN DEADLY BAR SHOOTING

Last year, another Hyderabad techie, Srinivas Kuchibotla, was shot dead in a bar near Kansas City in a suspected hate crime, the paper reported.

His killer was a white man, Adam Purinton, who witnesses said yelled "get out of my country" before opening fire, the Associated Press reported. A friend of Kuchibolta’s from India was wounded in the shooting.

Purinton, 52, pleaded guilty to murder and in May he was sentenced to life in prison, according to reports.