Indian student deported from US for cyberstalking
Keshav Mukund Bhide cannot return to the US for ten years
Houston: A 24-year-old Indian student has been deported from the US after he was convicted of cyberstalking for posting threatening comments on social media to carry out a campus shooting.
Keshav Mukund Bhide, a former student at the University of Washington (UW), cannot return to the US for ten years. Bhide was arrested in June after he threatened women at the university in the comments section on YouTube.
He also defended the actions of Elliot Rodger, a college student who killed six people at the University of California, Santa Barbara in May and then killed himself too.
Some of Bhide's comments were posted only a few days after the June 5 shootings at Seattle Pacific University that left one student dead and two wounded.
In postings under the Google username 'Foss Dark', Bhide defended Rodger's actions, and in one comment on June 9 said, "I live in Seattle and go to UW, that's all ill give u. Ill make sure I kill only women, and many more than Elliot accomplished (sic)." The FBI and University of Washington police began investigating Bhide after the June 9 post.
During an interview after his arrest, Bhide told agents he sympathised with Rodger and that he thought it was unfair for creators of the videos to judge Rodger’s actions, according to court documents.
He told agents that he, like Rodger, had few friends and difficulty socialising.
Bhide, who was deported late last month, was charged in King County Superior Court, where he was convicted of cyberstalking December 11 and sentenced to a six-month suspended term, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement.
In an agreement with federal prosecutors, a federal indictment charging Bhide with interstate threats will be dismissed after his departure from the United States, the statement said.
In October, UW notified Homeland Security Investigation's Student and Exchange Visitor Programme that Bhide's student status had been terminated.
If Bhide re-enters the US in the next ten years, or attempts to do so, federal prosecutors may re-file the federal charges against him, according to the news release.