A 22-year-old Indian student, accused of stabbing his female professor over poor grades, has been charged with intent to murder by a United States jury.
A Middlesex County grand jury last week charged Nikhil Dhar, a student at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, with armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, causing serious bodily harm.
Police sources said Dhar stabbed Prof Mary Elizabeth Hooker, an associate professor of clinical lab sciences at her Fresh Pond home on December 22 after he followed her home from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, where she teaches science.
Hooker's Griswold Street neighbours, including an Army reservist, played key roles in leading police to the alleged stabber. Police arrested a blood-spattered Dhar in a nearby yard with the help of cell phone calls from neighbours.
Dhar has been ruled 'dangerous' by a judge and will remain in jail until trial.
Friends and acquaintances of Dhar still cannot believe the incident and said they were shocked to hear that the reserved student, an elected senator on the student government, had been arrested and charged in the attack of a professor.
"Honestly, I will never have known that he will do something like this as he is a nice kid and very active in school and always there for everyone," said a fellow student.
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