Mainak Sarkar: What we know of the IIT techie who shot dead his UCLA professor

Sarkar apparently killed a woman, alleged to have been his wife, prior to the incident in UCLA, according to a report

Mainak Sarkar, the gunman who killed a UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) professor before turning the gun on himself, apparently killed a woman near his home in Minnesota prior to the incident in UCLA, reported the New York Times on Thursday. 

Sarkar, 38, shot and killed 39-year-old William Klug, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, in a small office in UCLA before killing himself on Wednesday.

According to the report, police found what they called a "kill list" in Sarkar's apartment. Citing police sources the report said that the list included the names of Klug, another UCLA professor and a woman who lived close to Sarkar's apartment.

 

The woman, identified as Ashley Hasti, was found "deceased of an apparent gunshot wound" at her residence, the report added while citing police sources. Hasti and Sarkar, the report said, had been married in 2011 according to Hennepin County records. The report could not ascertain the current legal status of the marriage. 

Here is what we know about Sarkar so far: 

1) In 2000, he graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, with a degree in Aerospace Engineering.

2) After earning his degree from IIT, Sarkar, according to a DNA news report, worked as a software developer in Infosys for a year. Subsequently, Sarkar went to the University of Texas at Arlington (UT Arlington) in 2002, where he worked as a research assistant. The report added that after his time at UT Arlington, Sarkar worked as a software developer in Lucid Technologies LLC. 

3) According to his LinkedIn profile, which has since been deleted, Sarkar went on to earn a master's degree from Stanford University, reported the Minneapolis Star Tribune. 

4) The Minneapolis Star Tribune also said that from 2006 onwards, Sarkar was "listed as a member of the Klug Research Group in computational biomechanics at UCLA". The group, according to the report, studied problems "at the interface of mechanics and biology".

5) According to the New York Times, Sarkar earned a PhD in mechanical engineering from UCLA in 2013. 

6) According to Hennepin County Communications Officer Carolyn Marinan, Hasti and Sarkar got married on June 14, 2011, CNN reported. The report added that the legal status of the marriage at the time of their deaths was unclear. 

7) Sarkar's dispute with Klug seems to have been over alleged intellectual property theft. He accused the professor of stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“William Klug, UCLA professor is not the kind of person when you think of a professor. He is a very sick person. I urge every new student coming to UCLA to stay away from this guy,” Sarkar wrote on March 10. “He made me really sick. Your enemy is my enemy. But your friend can do a lot more harm. Be careful about whom you trust,” he added.