Nepali Student Found Dead at Her Houston Apartment

New Delhi, India: A 21-year-old community college student from Nepal, Muna Pandey, was found dead at her Houston apartment following an armed robbery. Authorities discovered Pandey’s body with multiple gunshot wounds around 5:35 p.m. on Monday, August 26, at her residence located at 6363 West Airport Boulevard.

The information was received after staff at Pandey's apartment complex called 911 following an anonymous tip about a deceased person. 

Paramedics pronounced Pandey dead at the scene, according to a statement from the Houston Police Department released on Thursday.

The investigation quickly led police to a surveillance photo of a man exiting Pandey's apartment two days before the discovery of her body. 

This man, later identified as 51-year-old Bobby Singh Shah, was arrested and charged with capital murder on Wednesday. 

Shah was apprehended during a traffic stop in northwest Houston, after a coordinated effort involving HPD SWAT officers, the HPD Crime Reduction Unit, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. 

He has been booked into the Harris County Jail.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to support Pandey's mother, Anita, who lives abroad. The fundraiser aims to cover travel and funeral expenses. 

According to Drona Gautam of the Nepalese Association of Houston, Anita had been trying to reach her daughter for days before learning of her death. Gautam, who is coordinating with the Nepalese consulate, reported that Anita noticed her daughter's phone was offline after Saturday night.

Gautam noted, “Mom said her phone was always online. After Saturday night, it was offline.” Gautam also mentioned that Pandey was found with three gunshot wounds, lying on her bed. 

This comes months after the body of 19-year-old Neel Acharya was discovered on Purdue University’s campus. Acharya had been reported missing after a night out and was found deceased the following morning. While the exact cause of death remains undetermined, coroners have noted there was no visible trauma to his body.

Just over a week later, on February 5, 23-year-old Sameer Kamath, a Purdue graduate student, was found dead in nearby woods with a gunshot wound to the head. Medical examiners ruled his death a suicide.

These incidents followed a high-profile case at Purdue University in October 2022, where 20-year-old Varun Manish Chheda was fatally stabbed by his roommate. In December 2023, Chheda’s alleged killer, Ji Min Sha, was declared incompetent to stand trial, according to local news reports. A Purdue spokesperson directed further inquiries to the county coroner.

Since January 15, when two Indian-origin students, Dinesh Gattu, 22, and Sai Rakoti, 21, were found dead in their Hartford, Connecticut, residence due to accidental fentanyl overdoses, the situation has become increasingly alarming. The Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner confirmed the cause of death as accidental overdoses.

On January 16, 25-year-old Indian graduate student Vivek Saini was reportedly beaten to death in Lithonia, Georgia, where he worked. The Indian Consulate has been involved in the case and is working to repatriate his body to India.

Four days later, the body of 18-year-old Indian American freshman Akul Dhawan was found on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. Dhawan, who had left his dorm at around 1:30 a.m., was reported missing by a friend. Despite an extensive search by campus police, his body was discovered by a passerby about 500 feet from where he was last seen, in subzero temperatures.

Additionally, on February 1, 19-year-old Shreyas Reddy Beniger, a student of Indian origin at the University of Cincinnati, was found dead in what local police have described as an apparent suicide.