Hyderabad woman engineer fatally shot in US would've celebrated birthday next week

Aishwarya Thatikonda was out on shopping for her birthday outfit at the Allen Premium Outlets mall in Dallas when a gunman fatally shot her.

Hyderabad: Come May 18, Aishwarya Thatikonda who was in the US would have celebrated her 27th birthday. But she won’t be around to celebrate it as she was among the nine killed in the Texas mall shootout. Her boss and head of a general contractors, Srinivas Chaluvadi said she was fondly called as Aish and was famous for her trademark smile, CBS News Texas reported.

In the interview, Srinivas said he was having plans to make her the CEO of his firm in a few months and to throw her birthday party for her which would have been celebrated on the eve of May 18. "She's loved and adored, not because she was killed under tragic circumstances, but because who she is personally," he said in the interview.

"I do not, my heart does not let me give credit for all of this love and affection for the tragic way that she was killed. This love and affection and respect is not out of sympathy. They truly love her. And I truly love her," Srinivas said in the interview to the private news channel, and added that he was planning to get her an outfit.

According to Srinivas, Aishwarya must have been shopping for her birthday when she was killed in firing Saturday. He said efforts are on to repatriate the mortal remnants of the Aishwarya to Hyderabad and Ashok Kolla, who is part of Telugu Association of North America, is working on that front along with the Indian embassy and local authorities.

In December 2022, Aishwarya visited Hyderabad to attend her elder brother Srikanth Reddy's marriage. Her LinkedIn profile revealed that she earned her undergraduate degree in civil engineering from a College from here. She moved to the US five years ago where she earned a master's degree in construction management from Eastern Michigan University in 2020. She has been working as a project manager for a Dallas-based contracting firm.

On Saturday, Aishwarya was shopping with a friend when they both were shot at by the gunman at the Allen Premium Outlets in Dallas.