Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take up the recent killings of Indians in the United States with the US authorities.

In a letter to Modi, the Chief Minister said the killings had shaken the confidence of families of Indians working in the US.

"It has also been noticed that hate crimes against Indians have increased," Rao wrote.

He referred to the killings of Hyderabad's aeronautical engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Warangal's software engineer Vamshi Reddy Mamidala last month.

Kuchibhotla, (32), was killed and his friend Alok Madasani was injured when Adam W. Purinton, a white man who earlier served in the US Navy, shot them at the Austins Bar & Grill in Olathe on February 22. 

Purinton reportedly got into a row with the victims and hurled racial slurs. He yelled "Get out of my country" and "terrorist" before shooting them. An American, Ian Grillot, was injured in the attack. 

Kuchibhotla of Hyderabad and his colleague Madasani from Warangal district in Telangana were working as aviation programme managers at Garmin, an MNC. 

Purinton has been charged with first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder. The FBI is investigating the shooting as a hate crime.

The Governor of US city of Kansas has declared March 16 as "Indian American Appreciation Day" to honour Srinivas.

"Kansas will remain committed to standing with the Indian community. We will always reject acts of violence and harm. We reject hatred in all its forms. This is a deplorable act that happened. We will not let it define us as a people," Kansas Governor Sam Brownback said.

Mamidala was shot dead in Milpitas, California, on February 10 in a garage in his apartment building. 

IANS inputs