Purdue Student Killed By Roommate In Dorm: Police

WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — A Purdue University student is in custody after he stabbed his roommate to death in their dormitory, according to police.

Ji Min Sha called 911 at 12:44 a.m. Wednesday to report that his roommate, Varun Manish Chheda, was dead, Purdue University Police Chief Lesley Wiete told reporters at a press conference streamed by WRTV.

Sha, a 22-year-old international student from Korea who was studying cybersecurity at Purdue in his junior year, was taken into custody in a matter of minutes at McCutcheon Hall, where he lived with Chheda, a 20-year-old from Indianapolis who was a senior studying data science, according to Wiete. Sha will be charged with murder, Wiete said.

The campus community was not immediately alerted to the situation, a decision Wiete defended Wednesday, noting the speed of the police response.

“We had him very quickly and there was no threat to campus by this individual any further,” she said, calling the killing “unprovoked and senseless.”

Eight students were removed from the residence hall to allow police to move freely around the scene, but they will be allowed back in their dorm rooms, according to Wiete, who said campus counseling services was accepting walk-ins Wednesday.

President Mitch Daniels offered reassurance Wednesday to the Purdue community while acknowledging the tragedy.

“Purdue is an extraordinarily safe place on any given day, and compared with cities of Purdue’s population (approximately 60,000 in all), we experience a tiny fraction of violent and property crime that occurs elsewhere,” he said in a prepared message.

“Such statistics are of no consolation on a day like this. A death on our campus and among our Purdue family affects each of us deeply.”

Police did not immediately disclose details regarding how Chheda was killed or what weapon was used, but an autopsy Wednesday revealed his cause of death to be multiple sharp force traumatic injuries, according to the Tippecanoe County Coroner’s Office.