Indian-American Teen In US Froze To Death After Club Denied Entry: Report

Akul Dhawan, an 18-year-old Indian-American student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the US, died last month after reportedly going missing for several hours. The Champaign County Coroner’s Office in Illinois this week said the Indian-American student died of hypothermia following “acute alcohol intoxication and prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures, which significantly contributed to his death.”

The student was found dead on January 20 after his body was found on the back porch of a building near the university campus in west Urbana in the US state of Illinois. There were signs of hypothermia when his body was found but the exact cause of death was under investigation by the campus police.

‘Denied Entry In Club’

Akul was out for drinks with friends on January 20. Around 11:30 at night, he and his friends decided to go to the Canopy Club – a venue close to the campus that they had visited before that night.

The staff at the club denied him entry. He tried to enter the club “multiple times” but was repeatedly denied by staff,” investigators said, adding that he also turned down two rideshare vehicles called for him, Kansas City reported.

Illinois and much of the midwest experienced brutal cold and freezing temperatures in the latter half of January, with wind chills dipping between -20 to -30 degrees.

Several calls were made to him that went unanswered and a friend contacted the campus police to search him. According to police, an officer looked for Dhawan by driving “at a walking pace” near the “likely path” he would have taken back to campus but did not see him.

The next morning, an employee of the university notified police and emergency medical services of “a man on the back porch of a building”. Police said that he was “dead at the time he was found”.

Akul’s parents – Ish and Ritu Dhawan said their son was found just 400 feet from where he was reported missing based on location-tracking data on their son’s phone.

Dhawan, who turned 18 in September last year, according to The News-Gazette, came to the University of Illinois’ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering to study robotics despite his parent’s opposition, who wished him to be closer to home.

The Jaahnavi Kandula

After a year of legal battles, court proceedings, and calls for accountability, the police officer who was accused of running his vehicle over Jaajnavi Kandula will walk free. She was a 23-year-old Indian student, who was killed after being hit by a speeding police vehicle in the US state of Washington on January 23 last year.

Despite acknowledging the impact on communities both locally and “across the world”, a US prosecutor claimed a lack of “sufficient evidence” to pursue criminal charges against Seattle police officer Kevin Dave, who was driving at 120 mph when his cop car hit Ms Kandula, a Master’s student in Seattle from Andhra Pradesh. 

In bodycam footage released by Seattle Police, officer Daniel Auderer, who was not involved in the collision but was present at the scene, laughed about the crash before dismissing the need for a criminal investigation and making insensitive comments about Ms Kandula’s age and value.