UN chief denounces xenophobia, Islamophobia: Official

UN chief Antonio Guterres strongly denounces xenophobia and Islamophobia, his spokesperson said in the wake of the alleged racially motivated shooting of an Indian engineer in the US.

"The Secretary-General, if you have listened to what he said in the last a few months, has spoken out forcefully against xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. We are seeing, throughout the world, an increase in these crimes, and I think he has denounced them clearly," Secretary-General's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said during the daily press briefing here on Friday.

Dujarric was responding to a question whether Guterres had any comment on rising hate crimes in the US against people from South Asia including the incident in Kansas City in which the 51-year-old US navy veteran shot two Indian engineers, killing one and injuring the other.

Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, was killed and another Indian man and an American were injured after the man yelling "get out of my country" and "terrorist" opened fire on them in an apparent racially-motivated hate crime.

Kuchibhotla, working at GPS-maker Garmin headquarters in Olathe, died of bullet injuries in a hospital.

His Indian colleague Alok Madasani was critically injured when the man went on a shooting spree after hurling racial slurs following an altercation on Wednesday night.

The American, Ian Grillot, 24, who tried to intervene also received injuries in the firing.

The incident sent shock waves across the Indian community and prompted civil rights groups to urge people from the sub-continent, particularly Sikhs, to be cautious and extra vigilant.