The devastated father of a student murdered on December 26th found out about his son’s murder on Facebook.
Anuj Bidve (23), was shot in the head at point-blank range as he walked with friends near their hotel in the inner-city Ordsall district of Salford, in the early hours of Monday morning.
The murder of the Indian student is being treated by detectives at Greater Manchester Police as a hate crime which may have been racially motivated.
Subhash Bidve, the victim’s father, said he heard the news on Facebook and is now desperate to get his son’s body home to Pune in India.
“Nobody official from the UK Government or consulate or the Indian government called us and told us about this,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“I am really surprised because they confiscated his phone and must have known his father’s or mother’s number.
“They could have called us and told us what had happened to him.”
Mr Bidve called for the authorities in the UK to speed up the process of returning his son’s body to India.
He added: “That is my only concern. We do not have a specific date or time frame when it can be done and do not understand it. We find it difficult and it is not accepted. In Pune and other places it is assumed that this could be the racism or a hate crime.
“I do not know, my family do not know and the reasons for his killing we do not know.”
Detectives in Greater Manchester have arrested a 20-year-old man on suspicion of murder, while a 16-year-old boy, two aged 17 and a 19-year-old man are also being held as the inquiry continues.
Police say they are working with the Indian High Commission to help the victim’s family fly to the UK as soon as possible.
Chief Superintendent Kevin Mulligan, of Greater Manchester Police, said: “We have not established a clear motive for the senseless murder of Anuj, and there is no definitive evidence pointing to it being racially motivated.
“However, we are treating this as a hate crime based on the growing perceptions within the community it was motivated by hate.”
Mr Mulligan said the murder weapon, believed to be a small handgun, has not been found and appealed for anyone with information about it to come forward.
“As I said from the start, the solution to this, and the way we can solve this murder, this awful murder, is for members of the community to come forward with information.
“They can do that anonymously, but the answer to this issue lies with the community.”
Mr Mulligan said police would leave "no stone unturned" in trying to find those responsible for "this awful crime".
Forensic and ballistics investigations are being carried out and police are trawling through CCTV along with house-to-house inquiries.
According to a Facebook page set up in Mr Bidve’s memory, he "was killed for not answering a simple question - 'What’s the time?’"
But Mr Mulligan would not disclose what was said between the killer and his victim.
He added: “At the moment all we can say was there was a short conversation. There’s no reason to suggest from that conversation that the crime is racially motivated.
“What we are saying is we do not know whether it’s racially motivated or not. But by definition we need to treat any incident of this kind where there is a perception that race is involved or hate is involved and categorise it as a hate incident.”
Mr Bidve was in a group of nine male and female Indian students visiting Manchester for a short break over the Christmas holidays.
The students, who had not been drinking, were walking through Ordsall from their hotel towards the city centre when they became aware of two men on the other side of the street.
The gunman, a white male in his 20s who was wearing a grey top, walked across the road and engaged the victim in a short conversation before producing the gun and shooting the student at close range to the side of the head.
The killer ran back across the street before the pair fled on foot towards Asgard Drive and the Ordsall housing estate.
Armed response units were sent to the scene at around 1.35am. Mr Bidve died in hospital a short time later.
He was studying for a micro-electronics postgraduate qualification at Lancaster University, and was described by tutors as “an outstanding applicant at the very beginning of a promising career”.
Speaking from Mr Bidve’s home town this week, Rakesh Sonawane (30), who is married to the student’s sister Nehal, said the devastated family had “lost faith in everything”.
Mr Bidve, who was described as “clever and sporty”, arrived in the UK in September after completing an electronics degree at Pune University.
PA