Korean charged with Indian-origin student’s murder
A KOREAN student, who allegedly stabbed his Indian-origin roommate to death in their dormitory at the prestigious Purdue University has been charged with murder.
Ji Min Sha, 22, a cybersecurity major from Seoul, attacked Varun Manish Chheda on October 5. He stabbed him multiple times in the head and neck before he called authorities to report his 20-year-old roommate was dead, prosecutors said last Thursday (13).
Sha was formally charged with murder last Thursday in the killing of Chheda, in what police called an unprovoked attack. Prosecutors allege that Sha “did knowingly or intentionally kill” the Indian student, ABC News reported.
Chheda, from Indianapolis, was found dead in McCutcheon Hall on the western edge of the campus last Wednesday (12).
Purdue University police department chief Lesley Wiete said last week that Sha called police early on October 5 and told them his roommate was dead in their first-floor dorm room on the campus in West Lafayette, which is about 104 kilometers northwest of Indianapolis in Indiana state.
Officers who arrested Sha found him wearing clothes with blood on them, prosecutors said, and an autopsy found that Chheda had died of “multiple sharp-force traumatic injuries.”
If convicted of the one count of murder, Sha could face anywhere between 45 to 60 years in prison.
The cybersecurity major is being held without bail, media reports said.
Last Thursday, Sha claimed he “was blackmailed” by Chheda, when he was asked about the motive of his crime, adding that he was “very sorry” for having killed his friend. He also apologised to Chheda’s family.
Indiana police called the crime an “unprovoked and senseless” murder.