A girl in Seattle on Thursday holds a sign for Jaahnavi Kandula, a 23-year-old woman killed in January by a police car, as people protest after footage was made public of a police officer joking about Kandula's death.

SAN FRANCISCO — A police officer in Seattle was recorded laughing about the death of an Indian student hit and killed by a police car early this year, sparking widespread outrage.

On Thursday more than 200 people rallied at the intersection in Seattle, Washington state, where Jaahnavi Kandula, 23, was fatally struck in January, calling for accountability for the officer who killed her and for Daniel Auderer's comments about the crash, described as "disgusting" and "abhorrent".

Kandula was struck by the car of police officer Kevin Dave on Jan 23 and died that night. She was due to graduate with a master's degree in information systems from the Seattle campus of Northeastern University in December.

Body-camera footage made public last week showed Auderer, vice-president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, joking with the police union's president, laughing and saying that Kandula "had limited value", and that the city should "just write a check".

"Jaahnavi Kandula's death was a horrible tragedy, and the scale of her loss should not be diminished or mocked by anyone," a member of the US House of Representatives, Raja Krishnamoorthi, himself born in India, said on Thursday, urging the Seattle police to pursue the investigation with seriousness.

"The recording of a Seattle police officer making light of her death and questioning the value of her life is disgusting and unacceptable," he said. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state member of the US House of Representatives also born in India, strongly condemned the remarks, and talked of the harm in normalizing xenophobia and racism.

In a unanimous resolution, the National Federation of Indian American Associations called on authorities to give priority to investigation, community engagement and respect for the rights and dignity of all individuals.

"The family has nothing to say," The Seattle Times quoted Ashok Mandula, an uncle of the dead woman, as saying. "Except I wonder if these men's daughters or granddaughters have value. A life is a life."

Prompt action sought

India's ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, raised the issue in Washington, DC, and sought prompt action on the killing of Kandula, and the insensitive behavior of the police officer.

The consulate general of India in San Francisco said: "We have taken up the matter strongly with local authorities in Seattle and Washington state as well as senior officials in Washington, DC, for a thorough investigation and action against those involved in this tragic case."

Meanwhile, many resignations and a dearth of applicants have led to a shortage of police officers across the US, so much so that some smaller towns have had to close their police departments.

In the past two years at least 12 small towns have dissolved their departments, The Associated Press reported.

At least 521 US towns and cities with populations between 1,000 and 200,000 disbanded their police departments between 1972 and 2017, according to a study by Richard Boylan, a professor of economics at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the report said.