Mainak Sarkar, the gunman who killed a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, had plans to shoot another faculty member at the institute.
Local news reports confirmed that the 38-year-old had killed his wife Ashley Hasti at her Minnesota home, before driving to Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Police Department has revealed that Sarkar graduated in 2013, and had lived in Minnesota for a number of years.
Earlier, Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson Jane Kim confirmed that the gunman had been identified as Sarkar, but declined to provide other details. Sarkar had been a doctoral candidate at the school, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing police.
The shooting prompted the sprawling urban campus to close for about two hours on Wednesday as police confirmed that Sarkar and his victim, 39-year-old engineering professor William Klug, were the only people involved in the incident.
The Los Angeles coroner’s office confirmed that Klug died in the attack.
University officials said classes would resume on Thursday and counsellors will be available for students, faculty and staff.
Sarkar passed out of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, in 2000, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In a now deleted post (that can be accessed via web cache here) Sarkar called Klug a “sick person” who “stole my code.”
Klug was a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, according to the university’s website. The Times reported that Klug was attempting to develop a computer-generated virtual heart.
(With Reuters inputs.)
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