On Friday night, a doctoral student in the engineering program at Duke University was shot to death in his off-campus apartment (thanks, Zuni123). The parallels of this tragic crime to the LSU murders cannot be ignored; like then, our tip line is the conduit for confusion and frustration over another senseless murder. Via The Raleigh Chronicle:
The victim has been identified as Abhijit Mahato, age 29, a Ph.D. engineering candidate who was from India and was studying in the United States, Duke University officials said on Saturday afternoon.
“He was found by friends who came by the apartment to check on him Friday night,” said Kammie Michaels of the Durham Police Department. Mahato was pronounced dead on the scene when police arrived, say police.
Durham Police said they do not yet have a motive for the shooting. Their investigation is continuing…
Mahato, originally from Tatangar, India, was studying for an engineering doctorate degree focused on computational mechanics at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. He was in his second year in the program, says the school.
Larry Moneta, Duke’s vice president for student affairs, said the university has begun “reaching out” to Mahato’s friends and to his family in India, as well as to Indian and other international students on campus. It is offering counseling services and has begun considering appropriate ways of commemorating Mahato’s life.
One way they didn’t commemorate it was by finding it a happy opportunity to test a school safety feature.
Here’s how the victim’s adviser, Tod Laursen described him:
“He made friends very easily and always had a smile on his face,” Laursen said through Duke University. “Our research team was particularly close to Abhijit. He was very well read in both poetry and literature, and enjoyed conversation with others about what they were reading.”
More about a stolen life:
On his website at Duke, Mahato said his hobbies included reading books, playing chess, and photography.
Before coming to Duke, Mahato worked for two years for the GE Global Research Center in Bangalore, India where he focused on finite element analysis, a computer-simulation technique used in engineering.
Mahato earned his mechanical engineering degree from Jadavpur University in India in 2001 and a master of technology degree from the Indian Institute for Technology in Kanpur in 2004.
Mahato was very proud of his Indian heritage and seemed to enjoy talking about his hometown.
“My upbringing was in Kolkata; the City of Joy, the city of intellectuals, and much much more,” said Mahato on his website at Duke. “My native language is bengali. We, Bengalis, have a very distinct and rich culture.”
Mahato’s website is here. May his memory be eternal.
And the poor uncultured ignorant Indians are indeed aware of the fact that the Great Land of America has crime. (Even in Abhijit’s case, his mother says that she had not wanted for him to go to the US).
Was it out of fear of violence though? My guess it’s just a fear of the unknown. And it’s not a sentiment of “america is evil” that I’d suggesting be pushed abroad, but rather an accurate description of the relative differences. The indian grad students I met have all told me “we follow the ratings blindly” which means they know little to nothing of the differences in socio-economic history of the cities in which these schools are situated in.
Not to forget that they are both big sports schools.
No youtube link of a duke sports game? again, if it’s so irrelevant that two big southern universities have had similar incidents in a short span of time.. why are we discussing it? Seriously, you might try toning down the sarcasm, ya know.. on a thread discussing a student with a bullet in his head. (which I should’ve done from the first place, I agree)
You know exactly why I titled it so.
Actually I don’t. I assume because a similar incident occurred recently in time and space. That’s an educated guess.
I see the possiblity of lighting a fire under university officials so that they do something, so that this case doesn’t stagnate like the LSU murders.
exactly. but what’s the sad but true supposition behind that? That it took the LSU murders to light that very fire.
I think some of the commenters have really nailed the issue which this tragedy and the LSU murders share, which we should highlight– international students needing to save money, being paid a modest amount, trying to send cash home…all of that leads to living in undesirable locales. We all make trade-offs. I don’t have an eat-in kitchen in my studio, but I live somewhere safe. I could have a one-bedroom where my fridge is NOT in my closet, but what happens when I walk home from the subway late at night? My choice about being able to cook is trivial compared to what these people are trying to juggle.
How many graduate students are endangering their lives by living in sketchy places?
Which is what most rational people would do, because the benefits of going to a higher-ranked school seem to outweigh the costs of going to that school if it’s in an unsafe area. These incidents are unfortunate, but I don’t think they’re indicative of a trend against Indian grad students in particular.
HMF, IIRC the killers in the LSU case were black. There’s been some indication that that might be the case here too. So what conclusions can I draw from this (or does it only apply to black people from the South)?
Are you really saying that it is unsafe for Indian students to go to universities in the South?
What I’m saying is, Indian students who are normally accustomed to following US News and World report ratings blindly, should have more information available to them about the schools they attend in terms of the history of that region vis a vis other region, and socio-economic status of the people nearby etc.. Rather than just thinking the US is some kind of monolithic fat hog that can be bled for a little green.
Many of you are calling the stipend we get here miniscule. I can tell you now that there are no Phd students living like serfs. The stipend is around 15-20 thousand/year for 2 years, and 35 thousand after that. In North Carolina that is more than enough to get a nice apartment(600-800 for your OWN apartment, 300-400 for a room in a shared one) in as safe an area as possible. It is enough to eat out twice every single day, and to buy a decent laptop and whatever else you will need. This is in addition to all tuition paid and additional stipends for school supplies etc. Sure it is not enough to invest, but that isn’t the point. We are not employees of Duke, we are students. In fact a lot of students buy a house on the stipend their third year. In addition science/engineering grad students know from day 1 that if it is money they want, there are financial/management consulting firms that are recruiting for very high salaries and lucrative summer internships. If a grad student tries to save money by choosing housing in a more dangerous location, he will have gone against the advice of the school. Note that Abhijit did not do this, and was living in a safe area adjacent to the school. The point is that the entire area has a high incidence of crime, and it often does seep into Duke. I think you are overly concerned about ‘Indian’ students, when there are many other students here affected by violent crime, including people that live on the main part of campus. Kids also do much more dangerous things than walk outside their apartment. For example we might go out to downtown Durham and get drunk until the clubs close at 2 AM…What I am saying is that when a student is cautious, like Abhijit, then the chance of bad things happening is very small. Not that it doesn’t happen of course, but it is sufficiently rare that we should not worry about it as a problem for incoming grad students, but a separate law and order issue for the surrounding area.
The Indian government could point to crime statistics that are already available on the internet. I only object to them issuing a school specific warning, when the overall incidence is so low.
change that to ‘a trend of crimes against Indian grad students in particular.’ Though if the circumstances they deal with lead to them living in more unsafe areas, that’s something schools have to deal with RE: graduate stipends.
Which is what most rational people would do
I’m not saying they shouldn’t , but that shouldn’t be the only source of information.
Aww, HMF, how tenderly you word things. Brings tears to my eyes, it does.
Because if one was not looking at every event in this world through a narrow pinhole of bigotry against southerners, one might see that there are other issues like the penury of grad students that might be more logically correlated with these incidents. Why is it more acceptable to baselessly say that “the south is a bad place” than “don’t live in neighborhoods that are predominantly populated by people of a certain ethnicity”?
might see that there are other issues like the penury of grad students that might be more logically correlated with these incidents
I’m not discounting that factor, oh god of youtube. However, our resident Duke representative has already stated that the area which he lived in wasn’t “a bad neighborhood”
Why is it more acceptable to baselessly say that
how is it baseless? My basis for saying the south is an undesirable place have nothing to do with this incident.
Aww, HMF, how tenderly you word things. Brings tears to my eyes, it does.
Real ones? or one’s that drip on flash video sites?
Must be the blacks and Latinos then.
Way to follow your advice, and keep the sarcasm down, buddy. By the way, before you point it out, that “buddy” word right there, it was dripping with sarcasm. Real sarcasm.
Although I agree that this is the problem, there is not enough information out there for a student who is moving 10,000 miles away. It is a known fact that almost every student who shows up to the USA spends his first month or two converting Dollars into rupees. When I came here, I found an apartment where there were lots of desis (that was my only known criteria). Luckily for me, the desi population had moved from the “bad” part of town into a better part of town. I have heard stories of people getting mugged and spotting sketchy people hanging out in the previous neighborhood.
But the fact remains that we (FOB’s who come here for their education) are largely uneducated about the ‘troubles’ we could face.
This also goes back to the point about the media and the image portrayed. If not for Katrina and the images broadcast around the world, my parents and relatives would have had no clue about what perils exist here. I am not saying that Katrina is an everyday event, but it showed the world the side that no one gets, the difference in the socio economic strata that exists and all the trouble it causes, well unless you live here.
So blaming the new students is not really going to work, it should be the Universities that ‘educate’ new students on their surroundings, the Indian/ Asian student associations should take the lead.
Must be the blacks and Latinos then.
Way to follow your advice, and keep the sarcasm down,
Aww, HMF, how tenderly you word things. Brings tears to my eyes, it does.
Pot, Kettle.
Yes from the tone of your comments HMF, it seems as if you believe that being in the South makes living, for Indian students, especially dangerous. Why is it you think that? What about going to school in USC, which is in east LA, or Detroit or Baltimore with their high murder rates. The south is not exclusive in having crime….
Here is a table of murder rates in the US http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=169
If you look, it is true that Louisiana has a very high murder rate. North Carolina is also above the national average. Yet it is below California, Michigan, Maryland, all of which have schools of a high academic reputation.
HMF, you are misrepresenting me. Waaah! Waah!
I wasn’t the one who asked you to tone down your sarcasm, or introduce the poisonous crap into this thread.
Pot, Kettle.
Sorry, I meant to say this
Yes from the tone of your comments HMF, it seems as if you believe that being in the South makes living, for Indian students, especially dangerous. Why is it you think that?
No, that’s not what Im saying, I’m saying, it is a bit uncanny that two incidents, involving 3 victims from the same national origin occurred in two schools closely geographically situated. I agree to your points re usc an detroit, but that information isn’t highlited or made readily available to these students coming over. That’s the point.
Roger,
It’s an Indian fellow who’s dead. It follows on the heels of LSU. That’s why there’s a concern. Believe it or not, I think all human life is valuable. (except the lives of those who are child molesters, rapists and serial killers, they can all fry – but that’s for another day) It just so happens we are discussing issues related to Indian graduate student and methods/means by which their safety can be enhanced. Wouldn’t it be logical to assume that if safety for grad students were increased a natural by product would be increased security on campus over all?
I chuckled to myself when I read this. I chuckled not because of anything inherently wrong with your statement or anything about the maker rather, your desire to have people avail themselves of the internet, a venue which is not normally known for its accuracy. Why limit it to the internet? I think I’ve made my feelings clear why a school specific warning would be beneficial and I’m content to leave it at that.
HMF, you are misrepresenting me. Waaah! Waah!
really, I misrepresent by directly quoting?
I wasn’t the one who asked you to tone down your sarcasm
How very glad I am, you’re able to stick to your sarcastic guns in the face of such tragedy. Too bad youtube didn’t exist on 9-11.
Have you looked at a map of the U.S. recently? LSU and Duke are not ‘closely geographically situated,’ not even relatively, and you can’t lump all of the South together either, Louisiana has a very different history than does North Carolina.
I think it would be ‘uncanny’ as well, if the killer(s) in this case turned out to be black, like in the LSU situation. But the completely unrelated point is really that international grad students don’t know enough about the area surrounding the schools they’re attending… ??
That poor high horse you just got up on, how it must hate the low road you are leading it down. The South! Racists, all of them! This is a great thread for me to bandy my bigotry! Awesome! Whoop-de-f***ing-do!
Is this your version of Godwin’s Law? In any case, The Onion did.
Actually Karthik, I think that the idea that the socio-economic stratification of the US causes ‘all the problems’ is unfair and unfounded. Many academics would say that our high crime rate is due to excessive penalties for drug use, and an ill-advised attempt to crack down on it, among other political and cultural factors. Also we have widespread gun-ownership, which increases the possibility of death in a violent encounter. In fact the US murder rate has consistently fallen since the 1970’s while our economic stratification has increased.
Take a look at these statistics: 1. Look at the GINI coefficient over time, a measurement of income inequality(it rises over the last few years) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
I believe we are in fact turning AWAY from the cultural/political problems that have caused our high crime rates, and they will continue to drop over time.
This is a great thread for me to bandy my bigotry! Awesome! Whoop-de-f***ing-do!
I don’t bandy anymore. I haven’t bandied for months.
I think it would be ‘uncanny’ as well, if the killer(s) in this case turned out to be black, like in the LSU situation
as would I. Do you have a link to the LSU ? have they charged anyone?
Roger, I think you’re misreading Karthik…from his comment, I gleaned that
was his actual point. I know him IRL and have spoken to him about this exact subject, so that helps with the parsing. 😉 I have met other DBDs at meetups who discussed how skewed their view of America was, and how they got that “wow, everyone’s prosperous!”-vibe from the media.
I believe the case is still being investigated, they haven’t charged anyone except for, recently, a man who offered false information and led the police on for weeks.
I’d say this entire thread has devolved to a pissing match, despite ANNA’s admirable exhortations to retain some respect for the dead. 220+ and counting…? Will someone finally take the high road and check their ego?
Is this your version of Godwin’s Law?
No, it’s my version of there are certain events that will make me cast away my commitment to nail that perfect joke. but by all means, for some the show must go on.
And by the way, on a complete tangent, I’ve actually met two co-editors of the Onion, they had a completely different first NY issue planned, then 9-11 happened, they decided to re-write the articles to ack the tragedy, as their way of capturing what they felt the nation was feeling, ie “Holy F8cking Shit”
I hadn’t realized your sarcasm was doing that.. maybe it’s your version of godwins law.
224 · kusala said
Alright, I’m done emptying my bladder.
Roger, what you say to some extent contradicts what Akash says, as well as an email that I received from an Indian friend who is a grad student at Duke:
The area where the student died was a bit shady- I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a breaking and entering incident, and the student got shot in a random fashion.
The point of my comment is not to pile on Duke or to claim that they were negligent in any way – there are probably many reasons for the crime wave or high crime rate in Durham, and Duke might not be indirectly or even marginally responsible for the leading contributors.
As with the LSU case where posters wondered why there isn’t a greater police presence around to protect residents of such crime ridden areas, here is what the The North Carolina Justice Academy (The NCJA is a state law enforcement training institution under the administration of NC State Attorney General) says on the matter of protecting citizens:
I think you may be overestimating the import of the “no legal duty by police to protect the public.” That just means that if you’re a crime victim, you can’t sue the police for damages.
I don’t know if anyone has seen this article, but one of the more interesting quotes, from a friend of the victim:
“I know Mahato used to walk home alone and he had mentioned he had coughed up money a couple of times to hoodlums,’ she said.
I am just quoting the exact text of what NC Law Enforcement follows as its guidelines. That text was not for the public’s benefit, but for the police officers. You can draw your own conclusions. There have been similar rulings in DC and other states. As a personal anecdote, I was in Baltimore some years ago in the harbor area when some tourists were reporting their vehicle was stolen to a couple of nearby police officers. The officers shrugged and said it wasn’t their precinct and walked away, without any offer of help or offer of calling it into the right precinct. I think many foreign students are unaware as to how US Law Enforcement works/doesn’t work. And perhaps the University should inform them as part of their orientation.
@HMF: Abhijit’s father said that as well.
[link]
I don’t think there are too many jurisdictions where you can sue the police for damages if you’re the victim of a crime. Of course, a “victim’s compensation fund” paid for with taxes isn’t a bad idea for a form of insurance, but that would compensate whether or not the police “screwed up.”
I find it troubling that the victim never felt it necessary to complain to the cops in the past when he had to cough up money to hoodlums. Or did he? ANd the cops never paid attention? I guess we will find out in a few days.
I was amused by this. It might have simply been bums hitting him up for change. I seriously doubt anyone would be repeatedly threatened with violence and pay up time after time.
To Roger: The US government thinks it’s important to gather and disseminate campus crime statistics and they force universities to do so under the law. I think all applicants to US institutions deserve to know more about the town where they will live. This is especially important for foreign applicants. In light of the events at Duke and LSU, I think the most beneficial action the Indian government could take would be to encourage US universities — where hundreds of thousands of their citizens study and live — to provide detailed information about crime statistics in the neighborhoods where current students live. This should be included along with every acceptance letter. People deserve to know that if you are going to live close to campus in Durham, Baton Rouge, West Philly, or Baltimore, that you’re might very well live in a violent shithole and if you’re close to campus in Ithaca, Urbana-Champaign, or Madison, such a fate is much less likely.
For those graduate/undergraduate students who are interested in learning about the crime statistics with their respective schools, here are a few links: http://ope.ed.gov/security/main.asp. This link is from the Office of Post-Secondary Education, United States Department of Education. As per law, as Richard McBeef pointed out, the universities are required to self-report crime that occurs on their campuses. Another link is from the FBI’s crime in the United States report. (2005 figures). There is a third site that culls information from both links, I just don’t know who runs it. It’s interesting that the third site notes that the FBI statistics may not match up with the self-reported university figures. I’m not sure if it specifically delineates crimes with respect to grads.
If you go to the FBI’s crime in the US report, you can navigate through the site to obtain more information with respect to particular neighborhoods one may be interested in, so for instance you can look at Durham and see the crime stats for that particular county in 2005. Obviously, these statistics are based on reported crimes and were submitted by state and local agencies so that obviously might affect the accuracy. Besides the stats, if a grad can speak to someone else in the program about places to live and overall crime that might be just as useful as dry stats to determine where they should live and precautions to take.
ANd the cops never paid attention?
I remember an incident, from a midwestern school, when an Indian grad student was heavily beaten and bloodied (not killed, thankfully, I guess it must have been Blk history month, and the predominantly caucasian assailants were taking it easy), this student had gone to some university cops for help, and was laughed at by the very cops who were supposed to help him.
You can’t force someone to accept someone, but you can make them accountable for not doing their job. I surely do hope this anecdote is acceptable to the WDL.
I know Mahato used to walk home alone and he had mentioned he had coughed up money a couple of times to hoodlums
Like I’ve said in another thread, this was a common occurrence outside Jersey city apartments. We considered it a rite of passage for a semester and moved on to a “nice, quiet mid-west university”. The quotes are in deference to HMFs grinding axe. I do not think you should analyze the word hoodlum. It is a fairly common descriptor used by DBDs.
Like I’ve said in another thread, this was a common occurrence outside Jersey city apartments.
I dont understand, it was a common occurence for random people to ask for money in a threatening manner and you to give it to them? Isn’t that called robbery?
If they were described as “hoodlums”, my only guess is they looked/asked for the money in a threatening manner.
Yes it is robbery. We as DBDs kept a fiver and a tenner. Each of us handed out a bill when accosted by 3 or 4 guys (teen/early 20s) who hung outside the complex. They were there most days and would take the money on an average of once a week. No guns were flashed. None of them said they would beat us or kill us. They just asked for money in a threatening manner. We saw them more frequently than the police. Anyway, it is not in a DBDs DNA to go to the police for this. The threshold for police intervention was set much higher. We called them hoodlums(not in earshot) and they called us walking ATMs(within earshot).
Since you insist on dragging race into everything HMF, keep in mind these are not white guys that Amaun is talking about (correct me if I’m wrong Amaun).
A little more on our mind-set. Remember for the DBD student group this was our first semester in the US. We knew these young guys were selling drugs. Obviously they had guns. Coming from India, you think the police may be in on this action since they were there most days. In retrospect, it is easy to see how this situation can spiral out of control. In my knowledge no student died outside those apartments during the few years that I kept track.
It’s a pity that Indians subject so meekly to the thugs. This is why the cops in the Satendar Singh case felt no real urgency to go after the criminals because the dead guy’s friends were so meek in seeking justice and were afraid to even support him openly. It is true quite a few cops show less urgency in solving a crime where Indians are victims compared to those where a white person is the victim. But how can you give up and not try to at least determine if you have a good cop or an indifferent cop in your neighborhood? There are still quite a few decent cops. I just don’t understand how people can just submit to this kind of thuggery. And by caving in, you are just making it tougher for the next indian immigrant who wants to do something about it.
215 · HMF said
Say what?
Since you insist on dragging race into everything HMF, keep in mind these are not white guys that Amaun is talking about (correct me if I’m wrong Amaun).
Actually, I hadn’t planned on dragging anything into it, I’m just trying to understand the mentality where someone feels it better to continually pay the “toll” so to speak rather than alert authorities, which amaun is explaining quite well.
These things can and do happen anywhere. It’s not common in America only.
243 · Pravin said
I don’t think you can establish a causal link between only the timidity of a victim’s family or their lack of urgency in pressuring the police for action and the lack of action on the part of the police–it’s far more complex than that.
I also think you’re being glib when you talk about ‘caving in’ and ‘making it hard for the next…’ One can’t know for sure what the potential mugger has or is capable of doing–even in Amaun’s case where this was a regular occurrence, it wouldn’t make sense for him to pull a Rambo–what’s to stop the thwarted mugger from coming back for your friends later, when the tough DBD is absent?
“It is true quite a few cops show less urgency in solving a crime where Indians are victims compared to those where a white person is the victim”
Before you say something like this you should have proof. …
I want to clarify what I said about Abhijit being in a ‘safe’ neighborhood. The area surrounding Duke is NOT the ‘safest’ part of Durham. However it is desirable due to its proximity to the University, especially for international students who don’t have a car. For that reason it is not cheaper to live there than where I live, which is probably much safer but a few miles away. What I meant to say is that the area is not particularly worse than other areas, especially since it is very close to school. All things considered, Abhijit’s decision to live there, irregardless of the cost, is not really a horrendous one, and did not cause his death.
The address of the crime scene is 1600 Anderson Use that address in the following website and you will see that there have previously been 0 violent crimes within 1/2 mile since Jan 2006. There are a few incidents of burglary and motor vehicle theft: http://www.ci.durham.nc.us/gis_apps/crimedata/dsp_entryform.cfm
I agree with Murali, I went to school in Philadelphia and the area where most graduate students lived was not safe. In most cases the people who asked for money were not from the neighborhood and the incidents were not reported due to fear of retaliation. The kicker is that the Indian students association at my school was not very forthcoming with information.
Sorry, there were 12 gun-related robbery incidents during that time. However no murder or rape. Also only 1 incident in in the apartment complex itself.