Ramesh Kumar
Indian American doctor Ramesh Kumar was found shot to death at a rest stop just outside Detroit.

DETROIT (Diya TV) — A 32-year-old Indian American doctor has been shot and killed under suspicious circumstances while sitting in a car in the state of Michigan.

Ramesh Kumar, who worked in the Urology Department of the Henry Ford Hospital, was found in the passenger seat of a car in a rest area, some 90 miles out of Detroit, last week.

Authorities are still investigating the matter, and trying to determine the cause of his death.

Kumar’s family members said they couldn’t provide investigators with much help in terms of suspects, but they have ruled out the incident as a possible hate crime. “We do not know (the reason for his murder). They (The police) are yet to find out,” his father Narendra Kumar, former president of the influential American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, told The Press Trust of India.

“We do not think it was a hate crime,” he added.

Kumar graduated from the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences in Kochi. When he did not show up for work, the hospital doctor called his father to enquire about him. Narendra made several phones calls and sent text messages in an effort to make contact with his son, all to no avail. Narendra said he then went to his son’s apartment to see if he was home, he called the police when Ramesh wasn’t there, either.

After hours of searching, police ultimately found Kumar’s body inside of the car at the rest stop.

While police have refrained from commenting officially on the investigation, it is likely to stir the anxiety of the country’s Indian American population. Since the swearing-in of President Donald Trump, whose campaign contained certain elements of discriminatory rhetoric, there has been a surge in hate crimes targeting the Hindu and Sikh communities in the U.S.