Sarkar's journey, from IIT to prof shooting
Kolkata, Jun 04, 2016, DHNS
Friends cannot believe he was behind the killings
The campus shooting by the brilliant, yet introvert boy, has left his schoolmates and neighbours shocked. Those who knew Mainak Sarkar are still finding it hard to believe the 39-year-old research scholar with one of the world’s top varsities killed two people, before committing suicide.
Sarkar, a former PhD student with the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), has been identified as the man who killed his ex-wife at their Minnesota home, before gunning down his former research guide on the campus on June 1. A bright student, with an outstanding academic record, Sarkar is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpore. He later pursued a masters degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Stanford, before moving to the UCLA, where he completed his PhD.
Hailing from Durgapur in Burdwan district of Bengal, Mainak passed his Class X exams from St Michael’s, a well-known convent school at the steel town. “He was brilliant and everybody liked him. We can’t believe he would do something like this,” said Gautam Biswas, one of his school teachers, on Friday. Sumita Mukhopadhyay, another teacher, was also shocked that the quiet boy, who mostly kept to himself, is on the front page of newspapers.
Champa Majumdar, who moved from Salt Lake in Kolkata to Durgapur, bought an apartment at a state-developed housing complex, where Mainak lived since childhood. Majumdar, who bought the apartment around 2005, reminisced how she found mathematical equations scribbled on the walls across the flat, including in the bathroom, after she first moved in. Purnima Maiti, resident of a ground floor apartment, remembered both Mainak and his younger sister, Soumi as “quite, studious and well-mannered”.
Sources said that when they sold the Durgapur apartment, Mainak had already passed out of IIT and had left for the US. He had a year-long stint with IT major Infosys between 2000 and 2001, right after he graduated from IIT. The last time Mainak visited India was around 2008, following his mother’s demise. Even though his father Satyen, who worked as a time-keeper at a Durgapur-based factory, committed suicide couple of years’ later, Mainak did not attend his last rites.
Sarkar, a former PhD student with the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), has been identified as the man who killed his ex-wife at their Minnesota home, before gunning down his former research guide on the campus on June 1. A bright student, with an outstanding academic record, Sarkar is an alumnus of IIT-Kharagpore. He later pursued a masters degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Stanford, before moving to the UCLA, where he completed his PhD.
Hailing from Durgapur in Burdwan district of Bengal, Mainak passed his Class X exams from St Michael’s, a well-known convent school at the steel town. “He was brilliant and everybody liked him. We can’t believe he would do something like this,” said Gautam Biswas, one of his school teachers, on Friday. Sumita Mukhopadhyay, another teacher, was also shocked that the quiet boy, who mostly kept to himself, is on the front page of newspapers.
Champa Majumdar, who moved from Salt Lake in Kolkata to Durgapur, bought an apartment at a state-developed housing complex, where Mainak lived since childhood. Majumdar, who bought the apartment around 2005, reminisced how she found mathematical equations scribbled on the walls across the flat, including in the bathroom, after she first moved in. Purnima Maiti, resident of a ground floor apartment, remembered both Mainak and his younger sister, Soumi as “quite, studious and well-mannered”.
Sources said that when they sold the Durgapur apartment, Mainak had already passed out of IIT and had left for the US. He had a year-long stint with IT major Infosys between 2000 and 2001, right after he graduated from IIT. The last time Mainak visited India was around 2008, following his mother’s demise. Even though his father Satyen, who worked as a time-keeper at a Durgapur-based factory, committed suicide couple of years’ later, Mainak did not attend his last rites.
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