Jaahnavi Kandula, 23, from Andhra Pradesh died at the crosswalk when struck by Seattle Police Department officer Kevin Dave, who was traveling northbound on Dexter Avenue in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Dave's vehicle was traveling at 119 kilometres per hour without a continuous siren on a street with a normal speed limit of 25 miles per hour; Kandula was in a marked crosswalk and was thrown 138 feet by the collision and later died from her injuries at a local hospital.
Kandula harbored hopes of graduating from an American college after her mother took on substantial debt to send her from her home in southern India to Seattle to pursue a master’s degree in information systems at Northeastern University.
“She was a brilliant student with a promising future,” her family said in a statement to TIME magazine. But in January, the 23-year-old student with a “radiant smile and bubbly personality” was tragically struck on a marked crosswalk by a reportedly speeding police car.
In September 2023, body camera footage of Seattle Police Department officer Daniel Auderer—the vice president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild—was released showing him laughing and making jokes about the situation shortly after evaluating Dave for potential impairment during the fatal collision. Auderer was recorded while on a phone call with police union president Mike Solan and said that Kandula had "limited value" and that the city should "just write a check for $11,000".
The incident has stirred outrage amongst members of the Indian-American community, as well as India, many of whom continue to express outrage under the hashtag, #JusticeforJaahnavi, on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
At a recent demonstration on Thursday, AP reported about a five-year-old Layla Allibhai sitting atop father Mo Allibhai’s shoulders while holding a sign saying: “I have unlimited value. So did Jaahnavi.”
Auderer’s reaction to Kandula’s death has raised questions over how the police may devalue people of color, immigrants, and women, sending shockwaves through the Indian community in the U.S. and wider diaspora, as well as in India. It has also prompted an investigation by authorities. Ashok Mandula, Kandula’s Houston-based uncle who had to make arrangements to send her body to her mother back in India, told the local Indian press: “I wonder if these men’s daughters or granddaughters have value. A life is a life.”
The incident has also touched a nerve among Indian students studying in the U.S. who relate to Kandula’s personal story. “She shares similar goals, hustling far from family,” X user Sai Siddartha Maram posted, “On another day could have been any of us and we would have never known we were worth 11k USD or had little value or just a regular person.”
In the month of April this year, a 24-year-old man Saiesh Veera, another native of Andhra Pradesh, who was pursuing his Masters degree in the United States, was allegedly shot dead at a fuel station where he was working.
In January this year, a student from Andhra Pradesh was killed and another from Telangana was injured when robbers opened fire on them at Princeton Park in Chicago. Nandapu Devansh (23) from Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh was killed while Koppala Sai Charan from Hyderabad was injured. Another student Laxman from Visakhapatnam escaped unhurt. The three students from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh had gone to the US only 10 days ago following their admission to Chicago's Governors State University
In the month of October 2022, three students from India died in a road accident after a straying vehicle collided with their car in western Massachusetts. Prem Kumar Reddy Goda, 27, Pavani Gullapally 22 and Sai Narasimha Patamsetti 22, died at the scene of the collision.
In early October 2022, a 20-year-old Indian-origin student named Varun Manish Chheda, studying at Purdue University was found murdered in his dormitory in the US state of Indiana. Varun Manish Chheda from Indianapolis was found dead in McCutcheon Hall on the western edge of campus. Chheda died of "multiple sharp force traumatic injuries," and the manner of death was homicide, according to preliminary autopsy results. Police Chief Lesley Wiete said she believed the attack was “unprovoked" and “senseless", Fox News reported.
Arunabh Sinha, a childhood friend of Chheda’s, told NBC News that Chheda had been gaming and talking with friends online on Tuesday night when they suddenly heard screaming on the call. Sinha was not playing with his friends that night, but they told him they heard the attack and didn’t know what happened. They woke up Wednesday morning to news of his death.
In November 2022, two Indian students were drowned in a lake in the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri during the Thanksgiving weekend. The victims were identified as 24-year-old Uthej Kunta, and 25-year-old Shiva Kelligari, both were pursuing their masters at St. Louis University in Missouri. Even though a distress call went into the authorities for rescuing the drowning men the rescue team arrived late to pronounce both victims dead on the scene.
In another incident in the same month, a 20-year-old Indian student died after being struck and dragged by a truck in Toronto, Canada. Reports said that Kartik Saini hailed from Haryana's Karnal and had come to Canada for studies in August last year. The incident reportedly took place at the intersection of Yonge Street and St Clair Avenue last week when the cyclist was hit and dragged by a pickup truck in midtown. Saini was pronounced dead at the scene.
Kartik Vasudev was shot dead in Toronto on April 7, 2022 outside a subway station in Toronto. He had gone there to study MBA. His father Jitesh Vasudev has started a petition on change.org seeking justice calling it an outright ''hate crime''.
A 24-year-old Indian student, Gurvinder Nath died following the critical injuries sustained during a violent carjacking in Canada. Nath, 24, was violently assaulted shortly after 2 am in the area of Creditview Road and Britannia Road West in July 2023. Hearing about her son's death, Narinder Devi, 50, died by committing suicide. Gurvinder’s body reached his hometown late Friday evening and both the mother-son were cremated together on 29 July.
On July 9, Gurvinder was delivering pizza at around 2.10 am on Mississauga's Britannia and Creditview roads, when unknown suspects confronted him and tried to steal his vehicle.
“Investigators do believe that there are multiple suspects involved and that the food order was placed as a means of luring the driver to this specific area. They have obtained an audio recording of the Pizza Pizza order placed before the attack," Inspector Phil King of Peel Regional Police’s Homicide Bureau said.
Police informed that Nath was violently assaulted and left critically injured by a suspect who robbed him of his vehicle and fled the scene. Multiple witnesses came to his aid and called for help before Nath was rushed to a trauma center where he was pronounced dead on July 14.
The inspector said that police believe Gurvinder was an innocent victim. His vehicle was found abandoned in the hours following the attack in the area of Old Creditview and Old Derry roads -- less than five kilometers from the crime scene, he added.
Gurvinder Nath arrived in Canada from India in 2021 with plans to open his own business. More than 200 people gathered in Mississauga at a candlelight vigil for Nath.
In the month of June 2022 a 25-year-old Indian national was shot dead in Maryland. His grieving father said he never wanted him to go abroad. The deceased, Sai Charan Nakka, graduated from the University of Cincinnati in January of 2022 and was a native of Telangana.
Together with two other students he had taken an accommodation on rent in Chicago and were staying together. On Sunday evening, the trio went out to buy a router for Internet connection. While they were on their way to a shopping mall, two armed robbers waylaid them. The burglars ordered the students to hand over their mobile phones. They even shared the PIN to unlock the phones. The burglars also looted money from the students. While leaving the scene, the armed men opened fire. Devasnh and Sai Charan sustained bullet wounds while Laxman narrowly escaped.
Another 26-year old student from Telangana was fatally shot at a restaurant at Kansas City in Missouri State during a suspected attempted robbery. K Sharat was shot inside the restaurant in Kansas City. Koppu hailed from Warangal district and was pursuing his masters in software engineering at the University of Missouri. He was said to be working part-time at the restaurant in Kansas City.
The shooting immediately raised concerns if this was another case related to hate crime. Kansas City in Missouri State is roughly half-an-hour’s drive from Olathe in Kansas state, where Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead on February 22, 2017 by a man yelling racial slurs. Adam Purinton, the 51-year-old man convicted of Kuchibhotla’s murder, was sentenced to life in prison on May 5.
Poetic justice done. The suspect in the killing of 25-year-old Indian student Sharath Koppu in Kansas City has been killed in an exchange of fire with the police, leaving three undercover officers injured. The police officials Sunday found the suspect involved in the shooting, but when two undercover officers conducting surveillance approached the man, he shot them with a rifle and fled, leaving both officers injured, Kansas City Star reported. That encounter touched off a series of gunfights between the suspect, whose name had not been released, and police. In all, three officers were injured and the potential suspect was killed.
Again in November 2019, 19-year-old female Ruth George , an Indian origin girl was sexually assaulted and then strangulated to death at the University of Illinois-Chicago campus parking lot. The victim was found unresponsive in a vehicle parked inside University campus and the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office on Sunday ruled her death as a homicide by strangulation. The assailant, Donald Thurman, 26, was arrested Sunday from a Chicago metro station. He was formally charged with first-degree murder and aggravated sexual assault for killing George. The Police had retrieved video footage from existing university cameras of the offender who was seen walking behind George, whose family has roots in Secunderabad in India. Ruth graduated from Naperville Central High School in 2018 before joining UIC to study kinesiology, she aspired to become a medical professional.
“Dearest Ruthie baby…. we miss you…just not able to believe you’re no more.. You were a loving and wonderful daughter, sister and cousin..Rest in peace Ruth George … we love you…” wrote Sunaina Deborah, a family member on Facebook. She also posted a video of George speaking in church.
In December 2019, two Indian students were killed in a hit-and-run accident in South Nashville, Tennessee on Thanksgiving night. Judy Stanley, 23, and Vybhav Gopisetty, 26, were graduate students of the Tennessee State University (TSU) and were pursuing food science degrees in the College of Agriculture.
The year 2008 was always held to be a notorious year for Indian students, as a handful of deaths occurred. Arpana Jinaga (24), pursuing her MS degree at Seattle, was found murdered in the US by unidentified assailants. It was the fifth such incident where students were killed under mysterious circumstances. Jinaga, who completed her engineering from a city-based private engineering college in 2005, was working as a software engineer and simultaneously pursuing MS. She is among the top-20 professionals of embedded systems in the world. The murder of Jinaga came close on the heels of a string of murders of students of Indian origin from Andhra Pradesh. Another post-graduate medical student A Srinivas was found murdered in Pennsylvania in March while A Kirankumar and K Chandrasekhar Reddy, both PhD students, were shot dead at Louisiana University.
Today, Indians form the second largest student population in the US, following China, and soon may take over its neighbour. Between 2013 and 2018 Indian students doubled in America. And nearly half of these students pursued graduate programmes.Nearly three-quarters of the Indian students are in maths/computer and engineering programmes, 10 percent are studying business and management, and 8% are in physical science and health professionals courses.
During the arrival of the pandemic, as many as 75,000 Indian students could be stranded in the US according to the North American Association of Indian Students (NAAIS), with some being made homeless and unable to afford food.
NAAIS explained that lockdown rules in the country have meant that students had lost part-time jobs that they depended on for additional income, which had resulted in students facing severe financial problems.
While evacuation flights had been arranged by the Indian government as part of their Vande Bharat mission to bring these students home, according to reports, not all could afford the flight fares.
“We are seeing people who are sleeping hungry at night, and NAAIS is providing them with groceries. We have seen people who are homeless. We had a J-1 student living in a garage before we got him a home in Florida,” said executive director of NAAIS Sudhanshu Kaushik.
Students in the US on J-1 visas are particularly vulnerable when it comes to support, according to Kaushik. He said that many students on J-1 visas are mostly from lower middle-class or middle-class backgrounds and don’t have much disposable income. According to Kaushik, while J-1 sponsors are supposed to help students, in many cases, they do not.
“[Students] were fired, some companies terminated contracts and said ‘we don’t owe you anything’. That is morally wrong, and it is also a gross misuse of the system,” he added. Kumbhari said that it is the visa sponsors’ responsibility to monitor their J-1 students’ wellbeing during their programs.
‘’It is commonly believed that if you are on an H1B visa which is often referred to as a “slave visa”, you have no legal rights as such and it is important that you keep everyone happy,’’ says an H1B visa holder anonymously after he graduated from the country. ‘’People can complain over minor issues and your visa will be cancelled later.’’
‘’Your employer might force you to take a pay cut or refuse to renew your visa,’’ another J1 visa holder transitioned to H1 visa holder said. ‘’Your white co-workers or other folks who got their greencards etc. will treat you as shit at workplace and you would not be able to quit.’’
The racial hatred and racist treatment of Indians in the USA has reached such epic proportions that there are companies whose only job is to move Indian H1B holders to Canada. In fact thousands of Indians are moving out of the US to other countries where they do not have to risk their ‘’life and limb’’.
Well, a part of student life in the US is being conscious of your surroundings and aware of some safety issues that may or may not have been a part of your daily-life back home. While universities make sure that students are safe, it is up to the individual to be cognizant of various things during your stay here. I do not know if this sums up the story or not. I must say, it is not like living in a war zone but the students must not drop their guards anytime! I must say, ‘’stay safe’’.
By Sarat C. Das
(The content of this article reflects the views of writers and contributors, not necessarily those of the publisher and editor. All disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of competent courts and forums in Delhi/New Delhi only)
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