Indian-American teacher hailed for saving students during Florida shooting
New York: An Indian-American maths teacher is being hailed for saving the lives of her students during the shooting rampage at a Florida, high school that left 17 dead.
When an alarm sounded for the second time on Wednesday afternoon, Shanthi Viswanathan shut the doors to her algebra classroom, made the students crouch on the floor and covered the windows, keeping them out of the reach and sight of the gunman, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
"She was quick on her feet. She used her knowledge. She saved a lot of kids," Dawn Jarboe, the mother of one of Viswanathan's students, told the newspaper.
When an elite police SWAT team came and knocked on the door asking her to open it, "Viswanathan took no chance that it wasn't a trick by the gunman to get in" the newspaper said.
"She said, 'knock it down or open it with a key. I'm not opening the door," Jarboe quoted her as telling the police.
"Some SWAT guy took out the window and cleared our room," Jarboe's son, Brian, texted his mother.
It may be recalled that a former student of the school, Nikolas Cruz, barged into Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Valentine's Day and killed 15 students and two staff members with an AR-15 automatic rifle.
However, he was reported to have had a troubled childhood and had threatened in a YouTube post to shoot up schools.
Although it was reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the agency closed the investigation without locating him, according to media reports.
The shooter abandoned his gun and during the ensuing chaos mixed in with the students to escape. He was captured about 40 minutes later in a neighboring town, authorities said.
In the entire Broward County, where Parkland is located, the Indian population is 22,600, according to statisticalatlas.com. But none of those killed are of Indian descent.
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PBKS beat RCB by five wickets in IPL
Bengaluru, Apr 18 (PTI): Punjab Kings defeated Royal Challengers Bengaluru by five wickets in their rain-curtailed Indian Premier League match here on Friday.
Batting first, Tim David (50 off 26 balls) struck a counter-attacking fifty to lift RCB to 95 for nine in a match that was reduced to 14 overs per side after a delayed start due to evening showers.
In reply, PBKS completed the chase in 12.1 overs with Nehal Wadhera making a brisk 33 off 19 balls. Josh Hazlewood (3/14) bowled brilliantly for RCB, but his effort was not enough.
Earlier, RCB lost wickets at regular intervals with the likes of Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Marco Jansen doing the bulk of the damage for the visiting team.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru: 95/9 in 14 overs (Tim David 50 not out; Arshdeep Singh 2/23, Yuzvendra Chahal 2/11, Marco Jansen 2/10).
Punjab Kings: 98/5 in 12.1 overs (Nehal Wadhera 33 not out; Josh Hazlewood 3/14).
