HYDERABAD, India — Hundreds of mourning relatives joined government ministers Tuesday at funeral rites for an Indian engineer killed in Kansas by a shotgun-wielding gunman spewing racial epithets.

The somber gathering in southern India, nearly a week after the shooting, also took on political overtones in response to a perceived antiforeigner wave in the United States linked to President Trump’s America-first policies.

The mother of the slain engineer begged her other son not to return to the United States, and two politicians turned up with signs that said ‘‘Down with Trump’’ and ‘‘Xenophobia in any form is unacceptable.’’

Before the cremation, the family washed and prepared the body of Srinivas Kuchibotla, 32, outside their home in a gated community near Hyderabad called Bachupally. The victim’s wife, Sunayana Dumala, and his elderly mother wept and the older woman had to be revived after fainting.

She said she feared letting her other son, Sai Kishore, return to the United States, where he also lives.

‘‘I will not allow him to go back. I don’t want to lose another son,’’ the mother, Vardhini Parvatha, wailed. A truck carried the body to the cremation ground about 23 miles away, where over 200 had gathered.

A decade-long resident of the United States who worked at the aviations systems department of the Garmin technology firm, Kuchibotla was shot dead last week by a suspect who later said he believed Kuchibotla and a companion were of Middle Eastern descent.

Kuchibotla and his friend Alok Madasani, 32, were in the crowded Austin’s Bar and Grill watching a basketball game when the suspect, described as inebriated, opened fire on them. Madasani was wounded, as was another patron who attempted to intervene.

Washington Post