Sacramento woman shot and killed by stalker honored at funeral

Friends and family gathered for the funeral of Shalini Thakur, 38, in Sacramento on Monday, nearly a week after she was shot and killed by her alleged stalker.

"It's a very sad moment. A very, very sad moment," said Tara Singh, with the Guru Nanak Sat Sangat of California, a Sikh temple nonprofit.

Shalini was murdered in broad daylight on Tuesday, Sept. 8, outside a Panera in Sacramento.

The man responsible, Rohit Rohit, was in the country illegally according to the Department of Homeland Security. Shalini had an active civil harassment restraining order against Rohit when she was gunned down by him as she tried to run away.

Shalini's friends and family want her to be remembered for her bright spirit.

"She was a lady with a vibrant personality. Larger than life, with this glow about her, her aura," said Satinder Dulai, a friend of Shalini's. "She had a bubbly personality. She had a lot of goals. And I think one by one, she was completing them. She was a little feisty, but very loving."

Shalini's mother, Sudesh Kumari, grieved the unimaginable loss as she watched her only child pass before her on Monday in a wooden casket and sobbed during her funeral.

"Today, Mom is saying, 'Please let me go with her, and I can't be living all my life alone,'" Singh said.

Family and close friends are having a hard time processing Shalini's tragic death.

"I still can't believe it's real until today. Today, reality hit for a lot of us, a lot of her friends," Dulai said.

Most of Shalini's family is home in India. Her mother and uncle were her only family in attendance at her funeral in Sacramento. Everyone else who showed up to honor her was a friend and even a customer of the IHOP in Arden-Arcade where she worked.

"I want to honor her heart and her kindness," said regular IHOP customer Melinda Willey, who formed a friendship with Shalini.

Willey says she hopes this tragic event exposes a need for change.

"There's going to be voices being raised at the different government levels, and possibly there could be a bill passed with her name on it that could expedite situations like she was in. So nobody else has to go through what she went through or her family," Willey said.

Singh criticized law enforcement and said they could have done more to protect Shalini.

"He was an illegal person in this country and she has a restraining order. I don't know how the police department didn't take any action," Singh said. "Some coward man. I shouldn't call him a man. I think he's a beast. He's an animal. Who shot her for no reason. No reason."

Deputies say Rohit took his own life after leading them in a chase onto Highway 50 right after he murdered Shalini. Her friends call it justice denied that he will never be legally held accountable for his actions.

Sacramento County Sheriff's Office deputies confirm that they did have probable cause to arrest Rohit after he violated the restraining order in late July.

A spokesman for the department says they could not find or arrest him on multiple occasions they went looking for Rohit.

"We can't have another incident like this," Dulai said. 

Friends are now working to help get Shalini's mother back home to India. She had only come to stay with her in Sacramento for a few months to visit and was living with her daughter.