Another Indian student from Purdue University found dead
The body of Indian American Purdue University student Sameer Kamath (inset) was found at NICHES land trust in Warren County, Indiana. He is the fifth Indian or Indian American student to die under mysterious circumstances in the United States.
Sameer Kamath, a 23-year-old Indian American student of Purdue University, was found dead at NICHES land trust, a nature preserve, at Crow’s Grove, Warren County, Indiana, the second such tragedy at the prestigious institution in recent days.
Kamath, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering, was found at about 5 pm Monday, local newspaper Purdue Exponent reported citing a press release from Justin Brummett, the Warren County Coroner. The forensic autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon in Crawfordsville.
Kamath was from Massachusetts, the mechanical engineering head Eckhard Groll told the ME community in an email Tuesday afternoon.
He received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and came to Purdue in the summer of 2021. He graduated from the department with a master’s Degree in mechanical engineering on Aug 4, according to the summer commencement program.
READ: Neel Acharya, missing Indian student, found dead (January 30, 2024)
He was slated to graduate from the doctoral program in 2025, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The investigation is ongoing and Brummett said an updated press release will be released when more information is available, according to the Exponent.
The fifth such case of an Indian or Indian American student’s mysterious death in America in less than a month has sent shock waves in the community.
The incident comes days after another Indian-origin student, Neel Acharya, pursuing a double major at the prestigious Purdue University, was found dead on January 29 near the airport. Authorities have ruled out any foul play in his death saying the autopsy revealed no signs of trauma on Acharya’s body.
Indian student killed by homeless man in Georgia (January 29, 2024)
Three days later, Shreyas Reddy Benigeri, 19, a student of Business Statistics at the Lindner School of Business, Cincinnati, Ohio was found dead on Feb 1. While the US police are investigating the matter, authorities do not suspect foul play at this stage.
Benigeri, did his BTech from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani in Rajasthan, before coming to the US.
On January 16, 25-year-old Vivek Saini, an Indian American, was fatally attacked in Georgia state’s Lithonia city by a homeless drug addict.
In a similar incident, 18-year-old Indian American student, Akul B. Dhawan, was found dead outside the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) on January 20.
Dhawan reportedly went missing in the early hours of Jan 20 and was found dead 10 hours later on the back porch of a building near the university campus. His parents have blamed the school for negligence.
However, according to the authorities no foul play was suspected in Dhawan’s death, which they ruled as “accidental.”
READ: Akul Dhawan’s family accuses Illinois University police of negligence (January 26, 2024)
Indian students became the largest group of international graduate students in the United States in 2023 making up more than a quarter of the over one million foreign students in the country.
