Indian woman begged courts to keep him away, was killed by the same man - The Indian Express

A woman who spent months living in fear was killed by the very man she had begged the courts to keep away from her. Shalini Thakur, 38, endured relentless stalking that she discovered after finding a hidden tracker in her car. Later, she reported a break-in while she slept and now, she’s been shot dead in broad daylight outside her workplace, despite a restraining order meant to protect her, The Sacramento Bee reported.

Thakur was killed on Tuesday outside a Panera Bread restaurant in Sacramento’s Arden-Arcade area. Officials said the man accused of the shooting, 22-year-old Rohit, ran her down in a car park and shot her repeatedly. He then sped away, but police caught up with him on Highway 50. A standoff shut down lanes of traffic before officers found him inside his car with a gunshot wound that authorities believe he inflicted on himself. He died soon after.

NEWS RELEASE – HOMICIDE ON HOWE AVENUE Just before 3 PM on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, Sheriff’s North Patrol Deputies responded near the Panera on Howe Avenue after several witnesses reported a shooting. Deputies arrived on scene and located a 38-year-old female victim, who… pic.twitter.com/ImsjTm2W1q

In the days since, attention has turned to the many warning signs that came before the killing and to a grieving family now asking whether Thakur’s death could have been stopped.

Thakur’s mother, Sudesh Kumari, told local news station KCRA 3 that Rohit had spent months harassing her daughter and pushing her to marry him. Thakur had said no.

“She was so scared of him,” Kumari told the station.

The Sacramento Bee reports that Thakur’s family, friends and colleagues are now grieving a woman remembered as warm and generous.

🚨🧵 I KNEW it! The guy who k-lled this young woman here in Sacramento was an ILLEGAL alien! I probably filmed him when he crossed illegally in Arizona during Biden's term! The Biden admin released him into the interior. He stalked the woman for months, then sh-t her down. KCRA… pic.twitter.com/LNuadxn2pA

For Kumari, the pain runs deeper still. Thakur was her only child, and her husband died two years ago, leaving Kumari to face this loss alone. The last time mother and daughter spoke was by phone at around 2pm on the day of the killing. Thakur promised to call back in fifteen minutes. That call never came.

The harassment had been building for months before it turned fatal, investigators say. According to The Sacramento Bee, sheriff’s detectives said Thakur found an Apple AirTag hidden under the hood of her car back in January, planted there so Rohit could follow her every move.

That was not the only tactic. Authorities say Rohit let the air out of one of her tyres, then turned up to “help” when she went to work. In one especially chilling episode, he is said to have made a copy of her apartment key and let himself in while she slept. Investigators say they still do not know how he got hold of that key. Sheriff’s spokesman Sergeant Amar Gandhi described the pattern as an obsession that only deepened over time.

Thakur first told authorities about the harassment in March, but at that point chose not to press charges or ask for a restraining order, the Sheriff’s Office said. Even so, deputies stayed worried about her safety and kept checking in with her. By May, they urged her again to seek protection through the courts, and this time she did. Court papers cited by local media say Rohit would park outside her home for hours at a stretch and tried to dictate who she was allowed to spend time with. Thakur also told the court he had threatened to shoot himself, or anyone she was seeing.

A restraining order was meant to end the nightmare. It did not. On July 29, Thakur told police Rohit had violated the order by leaving groceries at her door. Deputies tried to track him down afterwards but had no luck, according to authorities. Weeks later, the harassment turned deadly.

Sheriff’s officials say Rohit drove to the shopping centre on Howe Avenue shortly before 3pm. Thakur arrived not long after and was dropped off near her car. That is when, officials say, Rohit chased her across the car park and opened fire. Police responding to reports of gunshots found her unresponsive; she was pronounced dead where she fell.

Witnesses helped investigators quickly trace Rohit’s car to Highway 50. When deputies tried to pull him over, he stopped dead on the freeway instead, setting off a tense standoff and a large police response. Officers later found him slumped inside the vehicle with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The killing has turned into a wider fight over immigration policy. The US Department of Homeland Security said Rohit was an Indian citizen who crossed into the country through Arizona in August 2023, was caught by Border Patrol, and was then released while his case was pending. DHS used the case to criticise the previous Biden administration’s handling of his release.

But reports note that Rohit’s immigration status was never fully clear, and federal court records show his case remained unresolved at the time of the shooting. A spokesman for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said the local force had no access to immigration records at all. California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office pushed back hard against efforts to link the killing to the state’s sanctuary policies, insisting the real story here is about stalking, domestic violence, and how badly the system failed to protect a victim who did everything right.

For Thakur’s family, the political argument means little next to the personal one: how a woman who reported the danger, and eventually won a court order against her stalker, still ended up dead at his hands.

Kumari had flown in from India, expecting to spend an extended stretch of time with her only daughter. Instead, she is now planning a funeral and facing the flight home alone. Thakur would have turned 39 on 19 September. She leaves behind two dogs, whose care her relatives are now trying to arrange. Investigators say they are continuing to piece together the events that led to her death.

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