Police in Santa Clara, California, shot and killed a 30-year-old tech worker from Telangana. This caused a lot of people to wonder whether the shooting was an act of police duty or racial abuse. The victim was Mohammed Nizamuddin. He was from the Mahabubnagar area and was living in the US to work and go to school.
The Incident
Officials from the Santa Clara Police Department say that on September 3, they were called to a home for a stabbing emergency. Reports say that when they got there, Nizamuddin was holding a knife and tying down his hurt roommate. Police said things got very bad very quickly, and deadly force had to be used. Even though Nizamuddin was taken to the hospital, he died from his injuries. His roommate is still getting care.
What the family says
Back in Telangana, Nizamuddin’s family has made very serious claims. In their minds, he was the one who called the cops for help, not the other way around. His family also said that he had written on LinkedIn that he was facing racial abuse, wage fraud, wrongful termination, eviction, threats, and even surveillance in the US. They think that these events show a disturbing pattern of discrimination that may have played a part in his sad death.
His family has asked the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and diplomatic officials in San Francisco to step in and make sure the investigation is thorough and fair. Also, they want his body to be sent back home as soon as possible.
The police and the legal process
Authorities in Santa Clara say that the District Attorney’s office and the Police Department are both looking into what happened. This is normal practice for officer-involved killings in the US. To figure out if the killing was justified, investigators will likely look at body cam video, witness statements, and forensic evidence.
Racial Harassment or Duty ? A Split Debate
The case has sparked a larger discussion among Indians living outside of India and human rights groups. There are people who back the police who say that they had to use force if they saw an armed man attacking someone else. On the other hand, critics point out that police have a history of unfairly responding to calls from blacks and say that non-lethal or de-escalation methods should have been tried first.
For Nizamuddin’s grieving family, the most important question is still unanswered: was he killed because he was doing his job as a police officer, or because of racism that went violent?
