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ShareWASHINGTON: An Indian professor was among the 33 killed in the Virginia Tech university shootout in the United States even as a student from India is feared to have met the same fate.
G V Loganathan, 51, hailing from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and an alumnus of IIT, Kanpur, was killed in the firing by a suspected Chinese student while he was taking classes at the university's Civil and Environmental Engineering department.
An Indian student, Minal Panchal, who has been missing since the incident on Monday, was also feared to be among the victims.
The professor, who is survived by his wife and two daughters, had been teaching at the varsity for 15 years.
Though there was no official word on Loganathan's death, the family is understood to have been informed by the authorities.
"The family was informed by the authorities and condolences were paid by friends and students at their residence on the campus," Ranjana Chachra, a neighbour said.
Loganathan's colleague Professor Mallikarjun Kumar told CNN-IBN, "One of the classrooms he was teaching in were involved in the shootout we didn't know exactly what was going on.
Also read: Police hunt for clues
"His wife called up saying they didn't hear anything from her husband and are trying to locate him. So we tried the local hospitals and tried to locate whether he is there or not and we could not find him and after that around five news broke out that he is among the victims," he said.
Loganathan obtained his bachelor's degree from Madras University, his masters from IIT Kanpur and his doctorate from Purdue University in the United States.
He received an award for excellence in teaching last year besides numerous other recognitions and was considered one of the department's top ten teachers.
