0

Gamariah (Jharkhand): A student from Jharkand doing research in an engineering college in the US was found shot dead at an apartment complex in Durham, North Carolina. This is the second incident of campus gun violence in five weeks in the US where Indian students became victims.

The body of Abhijeet Mahato (29), who was doing his PhD on computational mechanics at the Dukes Pratt School of Engineering in Durham, was found in the 1,600 Block of Anderson Street by his friends and colleagues on Friday, the student's grandfather and a former Jharkhand MLA Dhananjoy Mahato said on Sunday.

The crime was noticed at about 1130 hours IST (local time) on Friday night at the apartment complex, several blocks south of the Duke campus.

Durham police has reportedly said that the motive behind the shooting is still not known.

Dhananjoy said he would ask the government to make arrangements for bringing the body back home in India after the post-mortem is completed on Monday.

Abhijeet had last spoken to his parents on Wednesday and had mentioned that he had been very busy as his exams were round the corner.

A pall of gloom descended on Abhijeet's home at Gamariah and relatives and friends streamed in as soon as the news of the tragedy came in.

Abhijeet did his Bachelor in Engineering from Jadavpur University in Kolkata and M Tech from IIT, Kanpur. He was in his second year of studies in the US.

In a similar incident, two Indian doctoral students hailing from Andhra Pradesh were found shot dead in Louisiana State University campus at Baton Rouge on December 13.

More on: engineering student, shot dead, US