Indian-origin student Akul Dhawan, student of Illinois University, died of hypothermia after being denied entry to a nearby club in Champaign.
Illinois: A shocking incident has come to light in the United States’ Champaign city where an Indian student, who was studying in Illinois University, died of hypothermia after being denied entry to a nearby club during a night out with friends. The disclosure from the Champaign County Coroner’s Office, as stated in a news release on February 20, comes one month after the death of Akul Dhawan. As per local police, Akul was found dead on January 20 and had been drinking with friends that evening, but things changed around 11:30 pm.
How It Happened
The deceased student’s friends entered the Canopy Club where they had already been that night, but the club staff refused entry to Dhawan, police said.
CCTV footage showed that the student attempted to get back inside the club several times, but the staff stopped him. Akul also refused to take two rideshare that were called for him, as per The Kansas City Star.
Temperature was At -2.7 Degrees Celsius When the deceased Was Out
On the night of the incident, the temperature plunged to -2.7 degrees Celsius, as per weather.com, reported by the Kansan City Star.
Dhawan’s friends called him several times throughout the night but he went unanswered. One of the friends reached out to campus police for help in finding him, said the police.
Despite efforts to locate him they couldn’t find Akul Dhawan.
The next morning, Akul Dhawan was found “lying on concrete steps” behind a building and declared dead at the scene, The Kansas City Star reported.
The coroner’s office responded on the cause of death and said, “acute alcohol intoxication and prolonged exposure to extremely cold temperatures, significantly contributed to his death”.
Family Issued Open Letter Questioning Police
The family of the deceased wrote in an open letter that was published in The News-Gazette, “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. The locations where he was reported missing and where he was found are less than 200 feet apart. 200 feet!,” the letter read.
The deceased’s parents are residents of the San Francisco Bay Area in California.