Suspect in Indian student's murder held in US
Police in Durham, North Carolina, apprehended a suspect in the murder of Indian PhD student Abhijit Mahato even as the young man’s body was sent by road to New York to be flown to India on an Air India flight.
By TNN |
WASHINGTON: Police in Durham, North Carolina, apprehended a suspect in the murder of Indian PhD student Abhijit Mahato even as the young man’s body was sent by road to New York to be flown to India on an Air India flight.
A chance encounter involving a police officer who was trying to pull over four men in a car for a traffic violation led to a high speed chase culminating in the arrests of William Dozia Smith, 20, Stephen Lavance Oates Jr, 19, and two juveniles, both 14.
While they were held on suspicion of being involved in a spate of armed robberies in the area, police later charged Oates with murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon in last Friday’s slaying of Duke University’s Indian doctoral scholar Abhijit Mahato.
Oates reportedly has a criminal record going back to two years of break-ins and assault on a female. He is scheduled to appear in court later Thursday. The arrest came even as two officials from the Indian Embassy in Washington DC went to Duke University to reassure the Indian student community and arrange for the transfer of Mahato’s body to India.
Air India will fly the body from JFK on Thursday and it is expected to reach Ranchi on January 26.
Meantime, Duke University has scheduled a memorial service, which the University officials called a ‘‘celebration of his life’’ later in the week at the Duke chapel.
The murders of two other Indian PhD scholars, Chandrasekhar Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam of Louisiana State University still remain unsolved.
A chance encounter involving a police officer who was trying to pull over four men in a car for a traffic violation led to a high speed chase culminating in the arrests of William Dozia Smith, 20, Stephen Lavance Oates Jr, 19, and two juveniles, both 14.
While they were held on suspicion of being involved in a spate of armed robberies in the area, police later charged Oates with murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon in last Friday’s slaying of Duke University’s Indian doctoral scholar Abhijit Mahato.
Oates reportedly has a criminal record going back to two years of break-ins and assault on a female. He is scheduled to appear in court later Thursday. The arrest came even as two officials from the Indian Embassy in Washington DC went to Duke University to reassure the Indian student community and arrange for the transfer of Mahato’s body to India.
Air India will fly the body from JFK on Thursday and it is expected to reach Ranchi on January 26.
Meantime, Duke University has scheduled a memorial service, which the University officials called a ‘‘celebration of his life’’ later in the week at the Duke chapel.
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The murders of two other Indian PhD scholars, Chandrasekhar Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam of Louisiana State University still remain unsolved.
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