UCLA Shooting Mainak Sarkar
UCLA Shooting Mainak SarkarReuters

Former University of Califonia student Mainak Sarkar, who shot his professor dead in the campus, had killed his wife as well before the UCLA rampage, it has emerged. 

The 38-year-old former IIT Kharagpur graduate killed his estranged wife Ashley Hasti before he travelled to the UCLA campus. Hasti's body was found by the police in her Brooklyn Park home in Minnesota.

Sarkar's Everipedia profile says he had worked at Infosys Ltd in Bangalore and as engineering analyst at Enduria LLC, US, before acquiring permanent resident status in 2014.

Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said the woman had been dead "a couple of days", giving new lead to investigators on the sequence of events before the UCLA campus shooting, the LA Times reported.

The University of Minnesota confirmed that Hasti was a student at the medical school since 2012 and had graduated in Asian Language and Literature from the university in 2008.

WCCO confirmed that Hasti, who was on the "kill list" found in Sarkar's Minnesota home, married the Indian student in June 2011. Sarkar's profile in Everipedia indicates that the couple had a strained relationship following which they stopped being Friends on Facebook.

Sarkar reportedly shot William Klug, 39, his professor in UCLA and father of two, before shooting himself.

Investigators found "two semi-automatic pistols and several magazines" at the scene of crime and extra ammunition at Sarkar's home. Police also recovered a "kill list" from Sarkar's home, which had three people named on it, including a second professor in UCLA, who "is fine", according to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck.

According to Beck, police are still searching for the 2003 grey Nissan Sentra with Minnesota license plate 720KTW Sarkar drove from Minnesota to Los Angeles.

Reports suggest that Sarkar had a difficult relationship with Professor William Klug whom he termed is a very sick person." Sarkar had accused Klug of "stealing his computer code and giving it to someone else," police said.

An unnamed source at UCLA said Sarkar's allegations on Klug were "absolutely untrue". "Bill was extremely generous to this student, who was a subpar student. He helped him out and interceded for him academically," the source told the daily.