According to media reports, a 20-year-old Indian-origin student was murdered in his hostel in the US state of Indiana and his Korean roommate was taken into custody. Varun Manish Chheda of Indianapolis, who was studying at Purdue University, was found dead in McCutcheon Hall on the west side of campus, police said on Wednesday.
Another university student was arrested on Wednesday for murder, NBC News quoted the school’s police chief as saying. Purdue University Police Chief Leslie Viete said at a news conference Wednesday morning that Ji Min Jimmy Sha, a 22-year-old junior cyber security chief from Korea and international student, alerted police to the death at around 12:45 a.m. on Wednesday. Called 911.
The details of the call were not disclosed. Officials said the incident occurred in a room on the first floor of McCutcheon Hall on campus in West Lafayette, about 104 kilometers northwest of Indianapolis.
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Chheda, who was studying data science at the university, died from “multiple sharp force traumatic injuries” and the mode of death was homicide, according to preliminary autopsy results. Chief Viette said he believed the attack was unprovoked and inane”, Fox News reported.
Chheda’s childhood friend Arunabh Sinha told NBC News that Chheda was playing online games and talking to friends on Tuesday night, when suddenly a shouting sound was heard on the call. Sinha was not playing with his friends that night, but he told her that he heard the attack and did not know what happened. On Wednesday morning they woke up to the news of his death.
Viete said Sha was taken into custody minutes after the 911 call and taken to a police station for further investigation. He has not been formally charged. Police said Chheda’s death is Purdue’s first campus murder in more than eight years.
University President Mitch Daniels said Chheda’s death was “as tragic as we can imagine happening on our campus,” adding that “our hearts and thoughts are with all those affected by this horrific event.”
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