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Indian charged for stabbing US professor

Nikhil, a 22-year-old Massachusetts student, was accused of wounding his female professor over poor grades.

Updated on: Feb 12, 2006, 15:46:00 IST
None | By , Houston
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A 22-year-old Indian student accused of stabbing his female professor over his poor grades has been charged with intent to murder by a US jury.

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HT Image

A Middlesex County grand jury charged Nikhil Dhar, a senior at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, last week with armed assault with intent to murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious bodily injury and assault and battery.

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 to 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 cellphone 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 that 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 would never have known that he would do something like this as he's a nice kid and very active in school and always there for everyone," said a fellow student.

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