Parents of Akul Dhawan want answers after freshman son found dead
The parents of a University of Illinois Urbana Champaign student say they're in the dark.
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.
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