Indian-origin student shot dead in US apartment

A 21-year-old Indian-origin student at Rutgers University was killed and his roommate seriously injured in a shooting incident at their apartment near the school’s campus in the US state of New Jersey. Shani Patel, a junior economics major at the university, was shot and killed on Sunday at an off-campus apartment building in Newark, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office as saying. Patel’s roommate, whose identity was not released, was seriously injured in the shooting, authorities said.

The Rutgers Police Department said the shooting was not random and that the downtown campus, which serves about 12,000 students, was not under threat, The New York Times reported. Authorities are investigating the incident.

Essex County Prosecutors office and Newark Public Safety Director said in a statement that no suspects have been identified so far and no arrests have been made. 

The investigation “is active and ongoing”, they said. In a letter to the Rutgers University’s Newark community, Chancellor Nancy Cantor expressed shock and sadness at Patel’s death.