Indian-origin US student Akul Dhawan froze to death, says report; kin hit out at cops

Indian-origin college student Akul Dhawan, who was found dead near his US university on January 20, froze to death near a club that denied him entry during a night out with friends, a local media report said quoting officials.

The 18-year-old, a first-year student at University of Illinois in Urbana, died due to hypothermia, Champaign County Coroner’s Office said in a press release on February 20.

Dhawan had been out drinking with his friends at a club close to the campus that day, said a report in The Kansas City Star. According to the surveillance video, he and his friends had visited the Canopy Club that day but were denied entry at around 11.30 pm when they tried to re-enter the club. The paper quoted investigators as saying that Dhawan tried to enter the club “multiple times, but was repeatedly denied by staff,” and that he turned down two rideshare vehicles that were called for him.

One of his friends reached out to the campus police at 1.23 am on the same day after calls to him went unanswered through the night. Police said that they searched the premises and contacted his friends, but did not find him.

He was found at 11 am the next day, “laying on concrete steps” behind a building at four minutes walking distance from the club. The temperatures in the area reached around -2 degrees Celcius at that time, said the report.

The coroner’s office said that Dhawan was pronounced dead on the spot, adding that “acute alcohol intoxication and prolonged exposure to extremely cold temperatures, significantly contributed to his death,” reported The Kansas City Star. 

However, Dhawan’s family “believe that the police never searched for our son,” as per an open letter written by them in another local newspaper.

“We have been asking why Akul was found 10 hours later, rather than immediately after he was reported missing, when he could still be saved,” his family wrote. “The locations where he was reported missing and where he was found are less than 200 feet apart. 200 feet!”

They alleged that the university did not notify them of any concerns before the death. “As a parent, I never thought I’d receive such news. We are completely devastated. We have a big massive hole left in our family; we will never be the same,” they wrote.

A campus police spokesperson said, “The university community and police department are heartbroken as a result of this tragedy, though we certainly acknowledge that the depth of our grief cannot compare with that of the Dhawan family. Our thoughts remain with them,” reported the paper.

“The safety of all of our students and community members is of the highest priority. When we are called to check the welfare of a student, officers and non-sworn staff respond as quickly as possible, and their actions are based on information offered either by the caller or discovered during the immediate response,” the spokesperson added, as per the report.

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