Just days after Ish and Ritu Dhawan sent their 18-year-old son, Akul, back to college last month, they received a worrying call. Akul’s friend didn’t know where he was; he’d been missing since going to a party the night before.
The Bay Area-based family called the campus police at his school, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, expecting to get more details, they said. They were transferred to the county coroner.
“He told me he’s deceased. I could not believe it,” Ish Dhawan told NBC News through tears. “Nobody bothered to tell us.”
Akul, a freshman engineering student, died in subzero temperatures around 500 feet from his last known location, and his parents say what they’ve heard from authorities since has yielded more questions than answers. The Dhawans maintain that police were negligent in their search for Akul and in their communication with the family.
With their son gone, they say they want answers.
“I believe this is just a bad dream, I believe he is going to come back,” Ish said. “It is so unimaginable that a kid can die in this day and age right on the university campus.”
According to a press release from the university police department, Akul’s friend reported him missing at 1:23 a.m. on Jan. 20 after he left from a classmate’s dorm and couldn’t be reached by phone. An officer searched the area by driving “at a walking pace” along several roads and sidewalks between his last known location and his residence hall, asking passersby if they saw anyone. The release said the officer also called local hospitals and checked if Akul’s student ID was used at any campus buildings. None of the officers’ actions yielded results.
Akul’s body was found 10 hours later on the concrete back steps of a university building, not by police, but by a university employee, police said. The Champaign County Coroner said in its release that the final cause of death is pending toxicology results, but that Akul’s body showed signs…
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