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A campus party at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University last month turned into a nightmare leading to the hospitalization of several students and subsequent arrests. Twenty one-year-old Abhimanyu Janamanchi of Rockville, Maryland, turned himself in to Middletown police on a warrant on March 6. Janamanchi, the fifth student to be arrested in connection with the toxic overdose on the campus, was also among those critically injured in the Feb. 21 party held at the residence of Eclectic Society, a student organization. The sophomore was one of the students hospitalized after the party and needed to be resuscitated.
Janamanchi was charged with two counts each of possession of a hallucinogenic controlled substance and sale of a hallucinogenic controlled substance and one count each of possession and sale of a non-narcotic controlled substance. He is currently out on a $50,000 bond and is scheduled to return to court April 21.
Meanwhile, all the 12 students who had been hospitalized in relation to the overdoses have been treated and released.
Cases of drug and alcohol abuse among Indian-American students has seldom made news. Since last November however, there have been at least two cases that resulted in deaths. One involved Vaibhev Loomba, 20, of University of California, Davis, who was found dead at a UC Berkeley fraternity last November. The other occured in Villanova University, Pennsylvania, where Kinara Patel, 18, was found dead in her dorm room Aug. 29, from alcohol poisoning.
In a statement sent out Feb. 27, Janamanchi’s family said they were profoundly grateful to the teams at Hartford Hospital that went above and beyond to save their child’s life. “It is difficult to put into words how deeply grateful we are for the generous outpouring of love and support that we have received over the last few days,” the family said.
Born in India, Abhimanyu Janamanchi moved to the U.S. with his family in 1995. His father Abhi Janamanchi, originally from Hyderabad, is a senior minister at the Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church in Bethesda, Maryland. The elder Janamanchi grew up in India and belongs to the Brahmo Samaj which has ties to Unitarian Universalism. Abhimanyu Janamanchi’s mother Yashasvi, his father, and his brother Lalitha became U.S. citizens in 2012 according to the church website. Calls to Abhi Janamanchi’s office were not returned by press time.
Bad Drugs
After taking what has been described as a bad batch of Molly, a widely used club drug, on the night of Feb. 21, 10 students and two guests were taken to hospitals. The frenzy has indeed shaken the central Connecticut university and has caused panic among its faculty and students. Administrators became so alarmed that a vice president sent a campus-wide email exhorting students to check on their friends to make sure they were O.K., The New York Times reported.
Before Janamanchi’s arrest, four students were already arraigned following the party that led to the overdoses on “Molly,” a strain of MDMA that is a potent form of ecstasy. All the five students have been suspended from the university immediately following their arrests and are scheduled for disciplinary hearings.
“Given the nature of the charges, we immediately suspended this student pending a formal hearing,” Wesleyan spokeswoman Lauren Rubenstein said in a statement emailed to Desi Talk. “Wesleyan takes very seriously allegations concerning the distribution of dangerous drugs, and we will continue to cooperate with state and local officials to do everything we can to make our community as safe as possible.”
Among those arrested earlier were Eric Lonergan, 21, of Rio de Janerio, Brazil; Andrew Olson, 20, of Atascadero, California; Zachary Kramer, 21, of Bethesda, Maryland; and Rama Agha Al Nakib, 20, of Lutherville, Maryland.