Allen: Indian engineer Aishwarya Thatikonda among eight killed in Dallas-area mall shooting
An Indian engineer from the Dallas suburb of McKinney was among the eight people killed in a mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets mall, a loss that reverberated through Indian American communities across Texas and beyond. Her family made plans to repatriate her remains to India with help from the Telugu Association of North America. Separately, Allen welcomed new dining options including Panj Tara, a north Indian restaurant joining a wave of business openings in the city.
Aishwarya Thatikonda, Indian engineer, among eight killed at Allen mall
Aishwarya Thatikonda, an Indian engineer who lived in McKinney, a suburb of Dallas, was among the eight people killed in a mass shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets mall in Allen, Texas on a Saturday. She was less than a week away from celebrating her 28th birthday when the attack took place. Thatikonda had been at the mall with a friend when the shooting began; her friend was also wounded in the attack. Seven people were injured in total, some sustaining multiple gunshot wounds and requiring ongoing hospital care. Following the tragedy, her family began making arrangements to repatriate her remains to India, supported by the Telugu Association of North America. According to her LinkedIn profile, Thatikonda earned an undergraduate degree in civil engineering in India in 2018, then completed a master's degree in construction management from Eastern Michigan University in 2020. In the years before her death she had been working for a Dallas-based contracting firm on a US work visa, building a career in the construction sector in the Dallas area. BBC News reported on her background and on the other victims of the shooting at the Allen Premium Outlets, which drew national media attention for the scale of the attack and the range of lives it touched. [5]
🍛 Panj Tara brings north Indian cuisine to Allen
A north Indian restaurant called Panj Tara is among the businesses set to open in Allen, Texas, as highlighted in a March 2026 business and restaurant roundup published by Community Impact. According to the restaurant's own website, Panj Tara's menu features classic north Indian dishes including chicken tikka masala, butter chicken, shahi paneer, and butter naan, covering the staples of a cuisine rooted in the culinary traditions of northern India. The restaurant is one of several businesses that Community Impact identified as either recently opened or opening soon in Allen, reflecting an active period of commercial growth across the city. Reporter Mary Katherine Shapiro noted that Allen had seen multiple business openings or imminent launches across various sectors during the period, and that the list published was not comprehensive, suggesting further new arrivals may be occurring simultaneously. Panj Tara joins a dining scene in Allen that has been expanding to serve the needs of a growing and diverse local population. For residents in the Allen area interested in north Indian food, the opening represents a local option for dishes such as rich butter chicken, the cheese-based shahi paneer, and freshly baked butter naan, without requiring a longer drive into the broader Dallas-Fort Worth dining corridor. [1]
Sources: [5] BBC · [1] Community Impact