Tragic deaths of Indian-origin students in the US raise alarms over safety

A series of recent fatalities, with some linked to harsh weather conditions, highlight concerns about student well-being and campus safety

(Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in the Times of India by arrangement with the American Bazaar.)

NEW YORK – Death came calling for several Indian and Indian American students in the United States in the last few weeks, wiping out precious lives that held promise for a bright future. Families of the students who died — some of whom had just blossomed to manhood — are inconsolable in their grief across continents; aggrieved at the stunning, cruel turn of events that has scarred their lives forever.

While there are no discernible patterns that connect the deaths of at least seven Indian and Indian American students in the last few weeks, however, in at least four of those demises, cold and frigid weather conditions seemed to have played a role.

The latest case in the string of deaths was that of Purdue University mechanical engineering doctoral student Sameer Kamath, who committed suicide. Kamath died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the local coroner’s autopsy report. Kamath, 23, was found dead on Monday, February 5, at the Niches Crow’s Grove Nature Preserve, in Williamsport, Indiana. He was expected to graduate with a Ph.D. in 2025.

Recently, Shreyas Reddy Benigeri, a mechanical engineer from BITS Pilani, who was a graduate student studying Business Statistics at the Lindner School of Business, at the University of Cincinnati, was reported dead. No “foul play” was suspected in his death, as per a tweet posted by the Indian Consulate in New York. It’s likely Benigeri died of either natural causes or took his own life.

Another Indian student from Purdue University found dead (February 7, 2024)

Benigeri’s passing away was the third reported death of an Indian or Indian American student in a week, on the heels of the news of deaths of Neel Acharya and Vivek Saini.

Acharya, an undergraduate student at Purdue University, and an alum of St. Mary’s School in Pune, was a double major in computer science and data science in the John Martinson Honors College.

According to reports, Acharya’s body was found on campus, a day after an Uber driver had dropped him off in the night. Authorities have ruled out any foul play, saying the autopsy revealed no signs of trauma on Acharya’s body. While toxicology reports are awaited, it remains to be seen if freezing temperatures that night had a role in his death.

The news of Acharya’s death came just days after the brutal murder of an Indian student, Vivek Saini, 25, by a homeless drug addict in Lithonia, Georgia. The horrific murder was caught on camera at a convenience store where Saini worked as a part-time clerk. The accused murdered Saini by striking him nearly 50 times on the head with a hammer. What made the story even more horrific, and perplexing, was that Saini had played a Good Samaritan to the perpetrator by giving him food and warm clothing in the past.
Saini had emigrated to the United States two years ago after completing his BTech in Computer Science from Chandigarh University. He had recently graduated with an MBA from Alabama University and was on the lookout for a job.

Indian student killed by homeless man in Georgia (January 29, 2024)

Saini’s brutal murder was reminiscent of another senseless killing in November last year: Varun Raj Pucha, a graduate student at Valparaiso University in Indiana, where he was studying for a master’s degree in information technology, was stabbed to death by a stranger, at a gym where he was working out. The knife wound, in his head, dealt with without provocation, fatally penetrated the brain stem.

Neel Acharya, missing Indian student, found dead (January 30, 2024)

Another death last month that shocked the Indian American community was of an undergraduate student, Akul Dhawan, whose body was found on the campus of the University of Illinois. His parents have filed a lawsuit, alleging police officers were negligent while searching for their son after he went missing the previous night.

The locations where Dhawan was reported missing and where he was found — more than nine hours later — are less than 400 feet apart. The frigid night Dhawan went missing saw temperatures fall below zero degrees. An autopsy on Dhawan found evidence of hypothermic skin changes, according to the coroner’s report.

“This is bizarre, that a kid is never found who was just less than a block, like one minute away, sitting there, dead, frozen to death,” his father, Ish Dhawan, was quoted as saying. “Imagine as a dad and mom what’s going through in our mind. I visualize his every minute that my son froze to death on a university campus.”

Dhawan, 18, was enrolled in the University of Illinois’ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering despite his parents’ opposition, as they wanted him to study closer to their home in California.

Illinois and much of the Midwest experienced brutal cold and freezing temperatures in the latter half of January, with wind chills dipping between -20 to -30 degrees.

Akul Dhawan’s family accuses Illinois University police of negligence (January 26, 2024)

Cold weather had a role to play as well in the death of two computer science students at Sacred Heart University, in Connecticut, last month.

Autopsy reports confirmed that Gattu Dinesh, 22, from Telangana, and R Nikesh, 22, from Andhra Pradesh, died after inhaling carbon monoxide emitted by a room heater.

Over the years, there has been heart-rending news of the death of Indian students in the US. Recently, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told Lok Sabha in a written reply that “403 incidents of death of Indian students abroad have been reported since 2018 due to various reasons, including natural causes, accidents and medical conditions.” As per government data, the number included 91 in Canada, 48 in the UK, 35 in Australia, 40 in Russia, 36 in the US, 21 in Ukraine, 14 in Cyprus, 20 in Germany, 10 in Italy, and nine each in China, Kyrgyzstan and Qatar.

READ: Parents demand answers over Indian student’s death in Illinois (January 25, 2024)

The deaths in the US included a doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine who was found shot in November of last year inside a car. Aaditya Adlakha, 26, an alum of Ramjas College and AIIMS, Delhi, died eventually from his wounds. He was a fourth-year doctoral student in the molecular and developmental biology program.

“He was much-loved, exceedingly kind and humorous, intelligent and sharp, whose research was described as novel and transformative,” Dr. Andrew Filak Jr., senior vice president for health affairs, and Christian Holmes, professor and dean of the College of Medicine, said in a statement, in Adlakha’s memoriam.

Gun violence

Gun violence took more lives last year. It included the murder of Jude Chacko, a 21-year-old student at Temple University, who was shot in the forehead by an unknown assailant in Philadelphia, in June.

Indian student killed by homeless man in Georgia (January 29, 2024)

Authorities believe it was a robbery case, leading to murder. Chacko’s death had come on the heels of the murder of Veera Saiesh, a 21-year-old from Andhra Pradesh, who was killed in a suspected robbery case at a gas station, in Columbus, Ohio, in April.

In January last year, 23-year-old Devsish Nandepu was killed after armed robbers shot him at Princeton Park in Chicago. In 2019, Neil Purush Kumar, a student at the University of Troy, Alabama, was shot dead too at a convenience store.

In 2019, another murder by shooting rocked the community: Abhishek Bhat, a University of California student, had spoken to his family, back in India, on the phone barely minutes before he was shot dead. He was working at a motel in San Bernardino on Thanksgiving Day when he was gunned down.

Indian American student shot dead in Philadelphia (June 2, 2023)

That same month, in 2019, another Indian student, at the University of Chicago, Ruth George, 19, was strangulated to death, inside her car.

In October 2022, the community was in jitters and agonized at the bizarre killing of an undergraduate student at Purdue University, studying data science, and who was a semi-finalist in the National Merit Scholarship Program during the year he graduated from high school. He was killed by his roommate in their dorm room. Varun Manish Chheda was stabbed to death as he was playing a video game, by Ji Min Sha, a 22-year-old junior cybersecurity major from South Korea.

Man charged with murder of Indian American student Ruth George (November 26, 2019)

Three years earlier, in July 2016, there was another case of an Indian student killed by his roommate – also from India. Gundam Sankirth, 24, from Hyderabad, was killed by 27-year-old Sai Sandeep Goud Kurremula, from the same city, in Austin, Texas.

There was also outrage in the community a month before Chheda’s death, after news broke of the death of an Indian student in Seattle, and the callous manner she was treated after her death by a Seattle police officer. After Jaahnavi Kandula was struck dead by a police patrol car, cameras caught a Seattle police officer joking and laughing, and saying of Kandula: “Yeah, just write a check. $11,000. She was 26 anyways. She had limited value.”

Police body seeks action against cop joking over Indian student’s death (September 21, 2023)

A massive uproar followed. Rallies were held by Indian Americans in a lot of cities to protest those appallingly insensitive remarks. Later, Seattle’s Mayor Bruce Harrell tried to assuage the community and Kandula’s parents by writing an apology letter: “While I did not know Jaahnavi personally, I understand that she was a caring, kind, and smart young woman who had a very bright and promising future ahead of her. I share your grief that her life was tragically cut short.”

Kandula, who was studying at Northeastern University, was on track to receive a master’s in information systems this past December. Her mother had taken on financial debt so that Kandula could study in the US, media reports said.

In 2016, there was the sensational case of Shani Patel, studying economics at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She was shot dead by two unidentified people who entered her off-campus apartment in Newark. The New York Times reported then that the shooting was a targeted attempt to kill Patel.

Northeastern University mourns loss of Indian American student (February 1, 2023)

In December of 2017, the community was riveted at the case of an Indian American, Amritraj Singh Athwal, who is now serving a jail term, for killing a 21-year-old Indian student, Dharampreet Singh Jassar, a student from Punjab, who was studying accounting and criminal justice at Fresno State University, in California.

Then there were deaths of other Indian students in past years, Mamidala Vamshi Reddy, in 2017, who was killed after a robbery attempt; Sandesh Rajendra Dhavan, who was killed in a hotel room by a colleague; and Sai Kiran, shot dead after he refused to hand over his iPhone, grabbed headlines. Another student, Vaibhev Loomba, was found dead after a fraternity party at Berkeley. Prashanth Goinaka was shot dead in Oklahoma while working in a convenience store.

One of the most sensational student murder cases in the US was that of two Ph.D. students from Andhra Pradesh, Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam, in 2007.

They were tailed by two or three men to the latter’s home in Louisiana State University. The stalkers followed the two men upon entering the apartment — binding Komma with a computer cable as Allam possibly attempted to escape. They were both shot dead. They were granted posthumous degrees by LSU.

Pravin Varughese

The most famous case that has held the Indian American imagination, though, in the last 10 years, is that of Pravin Varughese. February 12th marked 10 years since Varughese’s body was found in Carbondale, Illinois.

A sensational murder trial had come to an end after a jury convicted Gaege Bethune, 23, of first-degree murder in the 2014 death of 19-year-old Southern Illinois University student Varughese. Bethune was accused of beating and robbing Varughese after offering to give him a ride on a freezing February night and then ditching the injured student in a wooded area. But in September that year, a judge tossed out the guilty verdict. Bethune was released on bond, is now free. Varughese’s parents have appealed, and there is a possibility that the case may yet progress.

Lovely Varughese, mother of Pravin, speaking to The American Bazaar, on the deaths of Neel Acharya and Akul Dhawan, responded: “I think the problem is there is nobody to talk for them [the families of the students] here. You know, so it is like, it’s all case shut. Even today my husband was saying the police will say, ‘oh, no foul play suspected.’ That’s the end of it, case closed. That’s exactly what they told us [about Pravin]. ‘No foul play suspected.’”
She added: “The Purdue University student (Acharya) was doing a double major. My God, what a smart student. Even that they said his phone was found somewhere in the field and he was found on campus. So, I don’t know how they can say no foul play [is] suspected. You know, nobody’s going to throw their phone in the field and come and just die. It’s common sense but to me, unless somebody’s there to talk for them nothing will happen.”

Asked if she saw any similarity between Pravin’s death and of Akul Dhawan, she said: “I mean, the similarity in the sense, like they are too quick, you know, to make an assumption [that] there is no foul play… even before an autopsy. I don’t know the details of these two cases, but from what I’m hearing is like, you know, they [authorities] are not doing anything. That’s exactly what was happening with Pravin too. If we did not make all that noise and raise all this, we were done too.

Trial of Pravin Varughese murder case begins on Monday (June 4, 2018)

“So, I always think when I hear cases like these, I’m like why is this, why don’t we get the same attention like the other communities get. Even when they are missing, you now, like about the search, it’s all over the news, in the national media and all that. But then when it comes to our kids, we are lucky if it even gets to the local channel. You know, and these kids are such smart kids, otherwise they won’t even make it here [to the US].

“And I don’t know how much this Indian consulate is doing. In our case, they couldn’t do anything because Pravin was born here. And we all are US citizens too. So, they said they couldn’t do anything…

“Yeah, but for these kids, I would hope these Indian consulates will take a little bit more aggressive inquiry and get to the bottom of it. You know these are real human lives. I mean, the parents and their kids over here, with so much dreams.

42 months after Pravin Varughese’s death, murder charges filed against suspect Gaege Bethune (July 19, 2017)

“These are the two case that you’re hearing, but I think there was one in New York last year. One of my friends in New York said they found the body and that was it. There was nothing after that, nothing. It’s heartbreaking,” said Varughese.

It’s hard to pinpoint blame, though, as sometimes not enough news is published after a student’s death.

Suicides

In May 2017, there was the shocking news of the death of Aalaap Narasipura, 20, whose body was found by scuba divers in a body of water known as Fall Creek, near Ithaca Falls, New York. It was never revealed how exactly the brilliant Cornell student died, though officials ruled out any foul play. Did he drown, was he dead when he hit the water, or was he murdered?

Narasipura, who was from the Salt Lake City area of Utah, had a bright, lucrative career ahead of him. He was popular among friends and peers, especially for his photography. He certainly was not an introvert, somebody who lacked friends, or had a dismal social life.
Narasipura was set to graduate in December of that fateful year with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering. He had also announced his intention to do a master’s program in electrical engineering. So, what happened?

Indian American Cornell engineering student Aalaap Narasipura found dead (May 20, 2017)

Cases of suicide are few and far between, in the Indian student community, as far as reported news goes.

Hemanth Yallanki, a then 24-year-old graduate student in the School of Computer Science and Information Systems at Northwest University, committed suicide in November of 2023. And, in February 2016, the body of an Indian student at Cal State Fullerton, Praveen Gulla, originally from Tirupati, was found floating in the waters of Newport Pier off Newport Beach, California. Reports said Galla, a second-year engineering student, was struggling with his studies, and depressed about his student F-1 visa status in the country.

The low number of Indian students committing suicide is in stark contrast to the overall situation in the US. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for adults ages 18-24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and causes about 21 percent of all injury-related deaths in this age group.

Water-related deaths have also taken a number of lives of Indian students, in the US.
In April of 2023, searchers recovered the bodies of Siddhant Shah, 19, and Aryan Vaidya, 20, two Indian students of Indiana University who went missing at Lake Monroe on a boating trip.

Bodies of two Indian students recovered from Indiana lake (April 24, 2023)

It was similar to another unfortunate boating accident in November 2022, when two Indian students from Telangana drowned in the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri over the Thanksgiving weekend even as one student was trying to save the other. The victims were identified as Uthej Kunta, 24, and Shiva Kelligari, 25. Both men had come to the US from Telangana, to pursue a graduate degree in data science at the University of St Louis.

Another victim in a water body was Suhail Habeeb in February of 2019. He died in the campus pool of the University of Rhode Island. His death followed the death of Linto Philip, in Dallas, Texas, when a kayaking trip went wrong. Philip was kayaking with his friends on a weekend at Lake Ray Hubbard when his kayak drifted into troubled waters. Philip came to the United States four months prior to his death, to enroll for a master’s degree at the University of Texas in Dallas.

In March 2016, there was the tragic case of Rajeev Naidu, 24, who had emigrated from Bengaluru to New York for a graduate degree program. Naidu, who was studying engineering at New York University, was admitted to Brooklyn Hospital Centre on February 21 with a lung infection after a snowstorm in the city. He was declared brain-dead on March 6 when he was undergoing treatment in the hospital. His organs were later donated to at least eight people in New York.

Despite the aura and allure of studying in the US, a 2017 survey conducted by The Institute of International Education (IIE), a US-based nonprofit, suggested that Indian students “have a high level of concern about potential study in the United States.” It analyzed that “80 percent of institutions responded that physical safety was the most pronounced concern for Indian students, while 31 percent of institutions indicated that feeling welcome was also a concern.”
That, however, has not stopped more and more Indian students from studying in the US over the years.

The number of Indian students in the US grew by 12 percent in the 2022-23 academic year, the largest single-year increase in more than 40 years, according to the State Department and the IIE. There are nearly 269,000 students from India, more than ever and second only to China, enrolled for study in the US.

Christo Thomas, an immigrant from India, who is an alum of Queens College, New York, and Chairman of the World Youth Group, an organization that charted the inaugural World Education Day at the United Nations in 2019, in an interview to the American Bazaar, advised students in the US to take some precautions when in an unsafe environment.

“In 2010-2012, there were outright violence against Indian students in Australia. Since then, the strategy advised to all international students was to go out in groups; if you are working in stores and gas stations make sure you have closed counters and stay inside. Incidents as such is getting worse not just for Indians but for all international students,” said Thomas, adding: “We need awareness of valuing and respecting the students. In 2023, they bought over $40 billion to this country’s economy.”

Citing a WHO report that reported homicide as a global tragedy, and which noted that globally, over 176,000 homicides occur among youth 15-29 years of age each year, Thomas had a piece of advice for students when faced with a robbery attempt: “If anyone tries to rob you just give up, don’t fight. Life is precious, not the materialist things.”

Dangers of study abroad program

Interestingly, in the US, a crusade to highlight the dangers of study abroad programs for American college students has an India connection.

Roshni Thackurdeen and Elizabeth Brenner are mothers who in the aftermath of their respective child’s death on study abroad programs, founded the nonprofit Protect Students Abroad in 2019 to help families be better informed and make wise choices, reported Forbes.
The goal of the organization was not finding culpability, but death and injury prevention. Brenner’s son Thomas died after a fall in the foothills of the Himalayas in India in 2011; Thackurdeen’s son Ravi drowned in Costa Rica in 2012.

According to the Forum on Education Abroad, 32 American students died abroad from 2010 to 2016. Thackurdeen and Brenner, however, contend that there have been 110 deaths in a decade based on their own research.

Two federal bills were introduced in both chambers of Congress in May of 2019, but have yet to pass, despite being re-introduced. The Ravi Thackurdeen Safe Students Study Abroad Act sought to increase the amount of information available to study-abroad students regarding the risks they could face. The legislation would require institutions of higher education to report all harmful incidents experienced by students participating in their programs abroad and on their efforts to protect students.

The bipartisan legislation was introduced by Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a New York Democrat.

“While study abroad can and should be an enriching, educational experience for students, we must implement additional safety reporting standards to ensure families have better information about the programs they’re sending their kids on,” said Maloney, in a statement.
It’s imperative that more is done along the same lines for Indian students who emigrate to study in the US.

Not only the US universities and colleges, but also the State Department and American embassies should be entrusted to hand out brochures to Indian students who get a visa, on the dos and do-nots when studying in the US, and what they can do to protect themselves from being in hazardous situations. Special emphasis should also be given to counseling international students on mental health services on campus, during orientation for new batches of students.

Students should be advised not to work in convenience stores and gas stations in crime-infested neighborhoods, to raise money for tuition and living expenses.

Apart from the fact that working off-campus in some areas is fraught with danger, it’s also illegal for students on an F1 student visa to work any job off-campus without work authorization: they risk cancellation of their visa if caught by immigration authorities, or could face legal hurdles when applying years later for permanent residency. They are also exposed to the danger of being exploited by corrupt businessmen.

Another major concern for Indian students is outfitting their selves in adequate warm clothing in US states which have harsh winters. Knowing beforehand how to keep themselves safe and warm when at home, and outside, will be critically helpful for many students who have never faced winters in India.

(Sujeet Rajan is Editor At Large, American Bazaar, and Editor-in-Chief, India Overseas Report)