A student from Hyderabad was injured when four armed robbers attacked him in Chicago, as per his family here.
Syed Mazahir Ali, pursuing Masters in information technology from Indiana Wesleyan University, was attacked and robbed by three men at Campbell Avenue on Sunday morning (local time).
Ali’s wife Syeda Ruquiya Fatima Razvi, who lives in Langar Houz area in Hyderabad, on Tuesday appealed to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to help in ensuring best medical treatment to him.
In a letter to the minister, she requested that arrangements be made for her travel to the US along with their three minor children. She said she received a call from her husband’s friend that he was attacked and robbed at Campbell Avenue when he was near his apartment. He was taken to a hospital.
Fatima said she got in touch with her husband after some time but he was in shock and was unable to talk to her. She wrote that she was worried about the safety of her husband.
Video footage of the incident shows Ali walking on a road and three masked men chasing him. Another video clip shows the profusely bleeding victim narrating the incident.
With blood oozing out from his forehead, nose and mouth, he said he was returning home with a food packet when four men chased and attacked him.
"I slipped near my house and they punched and kicked me and snatched my mobile phone," he said pleading for help.
The incident comes in the wake of four Indian-origin students being found dead in the US during the last one month.
Last week, 19-year-old Shreyas Reddy Beniger, a student at the Linder School of Business in Ohio, was found dead. Shreyas' parents live in Hyderabad but he held an American passport. Authorities had ruled out foul play in the case.
Earlier that week, Purdue University student Neel Acharya was found dead. A body, identified as that of Acharya, had been found on the university campus, hours after his mother had reported him missing.
Vivek Saini, from Haryana, was hammered to death by a homeless man in Georgia's Lithonia on January 16.
Saini, who was pursuing an MBA, worked part-time at a convenience store where a homeless man took shelter. The 25-year-old had reportedly given the man - Julian Faulkner - chips, water and even a jacket from time to time. On January 16, he reportedly refused to give Faulkner free food, leading to the homeless man hitting him 50 times.
Akul Dhawan, another Indian student, was found dead outside the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in January. While the 18-year-old's post-mortem report indicated that he had died of hypothermia, his parents filed a complaint, accusing the university's police department of negligence and inaction after he was reported missing.