DURHAM COUNTY: Will the death of Abhijit Mahato help motivate tougher measures against violent crime in Durham? Time will tell.
What is certain is that Mahato's death has touched a nerve among Indian students, Indian citizens and the Indian media.
From The Hindustan Times
January 23, 2008
Dhananjay Mahato’s voice choked. He needed to know who shot his 29-year-old grandson Abhijeet dead in the US, but he doesn’t know who to ask.
Hands folded before visiting journalists, he said: "We have questions and queries criss-crossing our minds. Who killed my grandchild? And when will his body come?" Abhijeet, who hails from Gamharia here, was found shot dead in an apartment complex. He was doing his PhD in Duke University in North Carolina
“We are not that affluent to fly to North Carolina to seek justice,” Dhananjay, a former MLA, said. “I am consoling myself that my Abhijeet's body will arrive, may be tomorrow or the day after.”
The Mahatos don't know who will follow the case to put Abhijeet's killers behind the bars. Dhananjay has pleaded with Union Minister of State for Food Processing and Ranchi MP Subodh Kant Sahai. "Newspapers and Shyamal, Abhijit's local guardian, are the only solace for us in our tragedy. We are trying to find out about local people who have connections in the Duke University," the grandfather said.
He kept sitting by the telephone hoping Shyamal would call and tell him about the post-mortem. “It’s six in the evening here and USA might be awake. We are expecting a call to tell us about the findings of the post-mortem,” he said.
An Indian student who was Abhijeet's friend at Duke is also helping the Mahatos, some family members said. “We have faxed an authorisation letter to the boy,” Abhijeet's aunt Poonam Mehta said.
The family said US authorities have been silent at the other end. “We are completely blank on whom to speak with to get the body back at the earliest. No authority has contacted us for support…. We do not have access to any official in the US embassy,” Poonam said. Jharkhand Deputy CM Sudhir Mahato visited Abhijeet's family and promised them help.
From the Hindustan Times
January 24, 2008
Following the murders of three Indian students in US campuses in the last five weeks, Naresh Rammohan, a self-confessed “first generation ABCD” and a student of New York’s Syracuse University, is rather disturbed. “I feel very insecure at the moment with the recent tragedies, and I know my parents surely worry more than I do,” says the member of Syracuse’s South Asian Students’ Association. He adds, “The Louisiana slayings in December opened my eyes. I admit that even in this day and age, people of color, in general, may be the targets for heinous crimes.”
Abhijeet Mahato, a 29-year-old PhD student at Duke University, was found shot dead late last week. Duke university authorities have said there is no evidence of the murder being racially motivated. In December 2007, two Indian doctoral students were found gunned down in a Louisiana State University (LSU) campus apartment. The LSU case remains unsolved, though it’s widely believed to have been a race-based hate crime.
An estimated 80,000 Indian students study annually in the US -- the largest number from any country. Naresh’s sense of shock resonates with a large number of these students. “The Indian community at MIT is shocked to hear about the recent violent crimes against graduate students of Indian origin. We are closely following the events at Duke and LSU and are very concerned that they might be hate crimes against Indians,” Aditya Undurti, president, Sangam, an Indian students’ association at MIT, told the Hindustan Times. “We have great trust that the city of Cambridge and MIT are taking all precautions necessary to ensure the safety of all students, including those of Indian origin,” he says.
At Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, the recent killings have brought alive memories of the bloody carnage last year, that claimed 32 lives – two of Indians. “Abhijeet Mahato’s killing has shocked everyone in the US, especially the Indian community because we are a peace-loving community, rarely involved in hate crimes,” says Rohit Rangnekar, president, Indian Students Association, Virginia Tech. He adds, “As of now, the US universities are as safe for Indians as any other community, but we pray that such incidents do not occur in the future.”
LSU’s Indian Student Association -- still recovering from the December 2007 killings of two fellow Indians -- is planning to write petitions to the governor, consulate and chancellors to ensure justice and prevent such mishaps. “People are calling for some serious action against such incidents,” says Ravi Tej Kavalipati, the association’s president.
But not all Indian students see the recent murders as a case of the Indian community being targeted. Sujit Nair of Caltech’s Organization of the Associated Students of the Indian Subcontinent sees Abhijeet’s murder as “another unfortunate innocent death.” He says, “Every year, there are around 12,000 firearm homicide cases in the USA.” An Indian doctoral student at Columbia university, who doesn’t want to come on record, echoes him: “It’s not like Indians are getting shot at because we are brown and smart and jobs are being outsourced to us. One should be scared in as much as one is susceptible to gun violence.”
From The Times of India
"Murder Shocks Indian Students"
January 23, 2008
NEW YORK: The killing of an Indian doctoral student at Duke University in North Carolina - the third such incident involving Indian students in a US campus in two months - has shocked the estimated 80,000 Indians students studying in this country.
It left a pall of gloom on the campus even where authorities beefed up security and reiterated that robbery appeared to be the motive for Abhijeet Mahato's murder. The 29-year-old IIT Kanpur alumnus was shot dead on Friday at his apartment in Durham, outside the university campus.
Mahato, who had been studying for a PhD at the Pratt School of Engineering for the past two years, was liked and considered an amiable and intelligent person by all those who knew him.
"The entire school is in mourning. People have taken it personally, like losing a family member," Vivek Wadhwa, executive-in-residence at Pratt's engineering management programme, said.
Wadhwa said he had spoken to Robert Clark, dean of Pratt School, who felt devastated by the tragic incident.
"Clark told me the university was working with the authorities to bring to book the perpetrators of the hideous crime," he said.
