JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian student killed last week in the Virginia Tech massacre was buried on Monday, as his tearful stepmother questioned why police had been unable to stop the carnage more quickly.
Partahi Lumbantoruan, 34, was studying engineering at the U.S. university when he was killed during the shooting rampage by lone gunman Cho Seung-hui.
“I just question the security inside the campus. How come two hours after he started shooting police couldn’t find the gunman,” his stepmother, Sugiyarti, told reporters after the Christian burial in a central Jakarta cemetery.
Sugiyarti, who goes by one name and is a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Indonesian army, saluted as the body of her stepson was lowered into the ground.
The shooting spree on the sprawling rural campus in southwestern Virginia renewed heated debate over gun control in the United States.
It has prompted some foreign critics to rail against a “gun culture” protected by the Western world’s most lenient gun-control laws.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.