In a series of disturbing incidents, an Indian doctoral candidate was found dead at Purdue University in Indiana while another Indian IT student was brutally attacked near his house in Chicago.
The back-to-back incidents since Sunday were the sixth in the US in 2024 alone.
According to The Purdue Exponent, a news agency independent of the university, Sameer Kamath, 23, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering, was found dead in Warren County on Monday, the mechanical engineering head Eckhard Groll announced on Tuesday.
In another incident, Indian IT student Syed Mazahir Ali was chased and brutally attacked by unidentified men near his house in the US city of Chicago on Sunday, February 4.
There were videos posted on social media and in one video posted on X, Ali can be seen with a bloodied nose and face and blood stains on his clothes as he describes his ordeal.
The report said that the police do not have any suspect in custody and the investigation is ongoing.
The Consulate General of India in Chicago said on X that the “Consulate is in touch with Syed Mazahir Ali and his wife in India Syeda Ruquiya Fatima Razvi and assured all possible assistance. The consulate has also contacted the local authorities who are investigating the case.” Ali’s wife Ruqiya Fatima reached out to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, requesting assistance to travel to the US along with three minor children.
Last week, 19-year-old Shreyas Reddy Beniger, a student at the Lindner School of Business in Ohio State was found dead. However, local authorities have ruled out foul play. Another Indian student, identified as Neel Acharya at Purdue University, Indiana, was confirmed dead days after being reported missing on January 28.
The incident comes just days after 25-year-old Indian student Vivek Saini, who had recently earned an MBA degree in the US, was hammered to death by a homeless drug addict in Georgia state’s Lithonia city on January 16.
Akul B Dhawan, an 18-year-old at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, was found dead last month with signs of hypothermia.