Dhavan was an engineering student.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: A 27-year-old man has been arrested in Dallas County, Texas, and is awaiting extradition to Virginia, where he stands accused of murdering a 23-year-old SMU engineering graduate student from Mumbai, India in early July.
Benjamin Rios Tovar, 27, was arrested on July 8 in the Dallas, Texas, area on outstanding warrants for second-degree murder and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle in connection to the stabbing of 23-year-old Sandesh Rajendra Dhavan.
According to the Dallas Morning News, the Henry County Sheriff’s Office said on July 21 that Tovar should be back in Virginia “fairly soon” to face charges that he killed Dhavan in a motel room they were sharing while the two were spending a summer in Virginia working for GTL Americas Ltd., a telecom company.
Authorities are still oblivious to Tovar’s motive, they don’t know when the homicide occurred — July 7, when Dhavan’s body was discovered, or, perhaps, a day or two earlier. They are also unclear on why Tovar returned to Dallas following Dhavan’s death.
Lt. D.W. Davis of the sheriff’s Criminal Investigations Division informed the Morning News that it appears Dhavan and Tovar didn’t know each other in Dallas.
“By all accounts,” he said, “they met through their employer.” He stated the two had gone to Virginia to work on assessing the signal of cell-phone towers: “One operated the vehicle,” Davis says, “and the other, the computer equipment.” SMU says Dhavan was working in Virginia as “part of a co-op internship program.”
According to the Martinsville Bulletin, if Tovar chooses to waive extradition, he would be extradited to Henry County in short order. If he were to fight extradition, the Henry County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office would have to obtain a governor’s warrant to have him extradited.