The Indian authorities have called upon their US counterparts to thoroughly investigate and take action against Seattle police officials who knocked down an Indian student in January, according to a statement from the Indian Consulate in San Francisco.
“Recent reports including in media of the handling Jaahnavi Kandula’s death in a road accident in Seattle in January are deeply troubling,” the Indian diplomatic mission said on Wednesday.
The mission added that it would “continue to closely follow up” on the matter with concerned authorities.
Who was Jaahanvi Kandula?
According to media reports, Kandula was a 23-year-old graduate student studying at the Seattle campus of Northeastern University.
She hailed from the state of Andhra Pradesh. Kandula reportedly died on the spot after being hit by an over-speeding police car.
A body-cam video of Seattle Police official Daniel Auderer, the vice president of Seattle Police Officers Guild, who was in the car at the time, has surfaced online this week.
In the video, Auderer could be heard erupting into a bout of laughter while relaying news of Kandula’s death just moments after the accident.
“Haha... No, it’s just a regular person. Yeah… Just write a check… She was 26 anyway… She had limited value,” Auderer can be heard saying in the video.
Meanwhile, an official probe into the matter has also revealed that Kevin Dave, the police official was behind the wheel at the time, was over-speeding at 74 miles an hour, three times over the prescribed speed limit, reports said.