Indian deported from US for mass shooting threat

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 YouTube comments. He also defended the actions of Elliot Rodger, a college student who had killed six people at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in May before killing himself. 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 some posts 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.After his arrest, Bhide told agents he sympathized with Rodger and that he thought it was unfair for creators of the videos to judge Rodger’s actions, according to court documents.He said that he, like Rodger, had few friends and had difficulty socializing. Bhide, who was deported late last month, was charged in King County Superior Court, where he was convicted of cyberstalking on 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 would be dismissed after his departure from the US, it said. 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.