UPDATED:
Jan. 24, 1:43 a.m.
Police have arrested and charged Stephen Lavance Oates Jr. with murder and robbery with a dangerous weapon in the Friday shooting of Duke University student Abhijit Mahato.
Durham Police arrested William Dozia Smith, 20, Stephen Lavance Oates Jr., 19, and two juveniles, both 14, which they believe may bring the investigators one step closer to solving some of the more than 70 robberies that have been committed since January.
Read more about the arrest here.
Earlier post:
Sad news from Durham, North Carolina, as an Indian student was shot to death in his apartment Friday night.
From News14 report: Abhijit Mahato, 29, a PhD candidate at Duke University who had hoped to get his degree in engineering, was pronounced dead after the police arrived at the scene shortly after the incident.
Neighbors say they didn’t hear anything out of the norm, but did say it is not shocking that something like that could happen in the area.
“People out here shooting people for no reason just to be doing it,” said Travon Corbitt, who lives nearby. “Some people think it’s fine, but I don’t.
There are about 200 Indian students and faculty members at Duke, according to Larry Moneta, vice president of Student Affairs at Duke University. Mahato was a second year student at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering focusing on computational mechanics.
A story in the Times of India says that Abhijit's mother told him not to go abroad. Although the police is still looking for suspects in this case, there is no conclusion as to why Mahato was shot.
All discussion veered round to one question: why would anyone want to shoot the soft-spoken, polite student?
No one could come up with a reason why he was targeted. "He spoke to us very often over the phone. But never had he communicated any sense of threat to his life," said his father Sitaram Mahato, a retired divisional engineer of Calcutta Telephones.
"He was a good boy and had no enemies. It is impossible fathom why he, of all people, had to meet this fate," said Biswa Ranjan Mahato, another uncle.
More on Mahato from the Duke University's website:
Before coming to Duke, Mahato worked for two years for the GE Global Research Center in Bangalore, where he focused on finite element analysis, a computer-simulation technique used in engineering. The experience prepared him well for his graduate work, according to Laursen.
“We were working together on an industry-funded research project and Abhijit’s prior industry experience helped him develop close working relationships with our partner,” Laursen said. “He understood their needs as a business and was a pleasure to work with.”
Mahato earned his mechanical engineering degree from Jadavpur University in 2001 and a master of technology degree from the Indian Institute for Technology in Kanpur in 2004.
This is one of the several violent cases of crime within the past month in the Duke community according to this report. A little over a month ago, two Indian graduate students from LSU, were found shot dead in their apartments in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The police have still not made any arrests in that case. As we learn more about this story, we will post it here. PLEASE HELP US COVER THIS! Please post links, updates, comments below or e-mail saja[at]columbia.edu
