Indian student shot dead in US during store robbery

HOUSTON: A 22-year-old Indian hailing from Andhra Pradesh was shot dead early on Christmas morning during a robbery at a convenience store where he was working part time as a clerk.

Jayachandra Elaprolu was shot five times and was found dead when the police arrived on to the scene.

The tragic incident occurred in Pasadena county of California state on early Christmas morning.

Police said they are now seeking at least two suspects in the shooting death, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Elaprolu was a student and was working at the convenience store part time.

Ali Kahn, a manager at the store said Elaprolu was from India and had been working at the store for less than a month.

A video of the CCTV footage obtained by the police showed a man in a ski mask entering the Conoco gas station at about 2:20 am (local time), before shooting the clerk and taking away the cash register.

Pasadena police spokesman Bud Corbett said the victim was shot five times.

Police distributed surveillance video from the store to local media outlets in an attempt to find witnesses, the paper said.

As the assailant confronted him, Elaprolu managed to get behind a door that led to a small office behind the counter, but he appears to have been shot through the door, according to police.

Media reports said Elaprolu was studying computers at college and had been working at the gas station for only three weeks.

Corbett said investigators were surprised by the ferocity of the gunman who appears to walk in with a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol in hand and starts shooting.

"To actually see the suspect enter a store and engage in gunfire is a unique circumstance... He's a very violent individual, and the sooner we apprehend him, the better," he said.

While the shooter is described as a 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall man between 220 and 250 pounds, police have named another person who was seen leaving the store seconds before the shooting incident.

Police said the second man, who did not appear to be having a weapon, could either be an accomplice of the attacker or a witness to the case.

The video showed the gunman pulling the cash register off the counter and hauling it out, snapping an attached cord as he left.

A woman who entered the store about a minute and half after the incident found the clerk hit by bullets and she called the police.

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IIT student gets Rs 70L job offer from Facebook

CHENNAI/MUMBAI: Facebook on Friday recruited one of its addicts from India. The website, which recently logged its 500 millionth active citizen, made an offer of about Rs 70 lakh for a posting in the United States, which has created a buzz on all IIT campuses where annual placements are on. In the last three days, no other company, domestic or foreign, has come close to offering this kind of a compensation package.

While Facebook is still interviewing more IITians, the student in question, who gives his name as DKS — he is to graduate from the school of computer science and engineering at IIT-Kharagpur in 2011 and doesn't want his full name to be revealed — has received a "join-us" post from the website. On his wall, DKS announces how he is hooked to Facebook, which cuts his day by half. He now knows that the social networking site, known as the Big Boss of the web-world, will eat up his days.

On the offer letter, officials from IIT-Kharagpur said Facebook offered a starting salary of $90,000, a relocation bonus of $10,000 and a one-time signing amount of $25,000 to the 21-year-old from Jamshedpur. But on the Kharagpur campus, students said DKS had also been offered ESOPs and the entire offer translates to about Rs 1.7 crore. However, sources in the placement cell did not confirm this. DKS, whose father is a government employee, has in his time at IIT interned as a research assistant at the University of British Columbia and at Microsoft India.

Interviews were on till late Friday at IIT-Madras where Facebook shortlisted 10 students. But, after several rounds of interviews, it did not select anyone from IIT-Delhi. Close to 30 students were placed from IIT-B on Friday.

At IIT-Madras, the highest domestic offer on Friday came from Transocean, which offered Rs 28 lakh and the high point of the day was when Intel offered positions to 30 students. At IIT-B, Tower Research which offered jobs to six students, was among the high paying companies. Several financial institutions — Goldman Sachs, Bank of American, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Capital One — have made a come back after lying low in the recessionary years.

N Ramesh Babu, adviser (training and placement), IIT Madras, is both excited as well as in a dilemma of sorts with 250-odd recruiters comprising a mix of old and new economy having lined up in close slots till end-January 2011.

"We are in a position where, say, after 20 days you may not have enough students for recruitment. We have not been able to give dates for some companies. Most companies which hire here, will also be going to the other IITs," he said. In the last two days, IIT-Delhi too has seen 110 students being offered jobs.

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