NEW YORK: Authorities in the United States, including FBI agents, are investigating the killing of an Indian engineer and wounding of another, along with harassment of a Pakistani couple on an airliner, as hate crime, according to the New York Times.

The Pakistani couple was harassed by a passenger who badgered them with remarks like “are you carrying bombs?” He was eventually taken off the flight by the plane’s captain.

In New Delhi, the killing of the engineer in Kansas state has raised questions about the treatment of foreigners in the United States after the inauguration of Donald Trump as president.

Mr Trump’s aggressive stance against foreigners is being cited as a reason for the rise in xenophobic incidents.

One witness said that the engineer’s killer, identified by the authorities as Adam Purinton, 51, yelled “get out of my country” before opening fire.

A bartender at a restaurant in Clinton, Montana, where Mr Purinton was eventually captured, said he heard him boast that “I have killed two Middle Eastern men”.

A 24-year-old American man who tried to calm down Purinton after he heard him utter racist slurs was shot at.

Purinton was charged on Thursday with one count of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2017