Andhra techie found dead in Seattle

“We could not get in touch with her on phone since Friday so I called up a few of my former students settled there to find out if she was all right. They called back last night to inform that she was found dead in her apartment,” Dr Jinaga said.

Arpana was living alone in a flat in Valley View Apartments in Redmond-Woodinville Road Northeast area near her office. Friends found the door of her flat broken and the girl lying on the floor with injuries on her throat. It is not clear how she died.

Dr Jinaga said that he was informed neither by the local police nor the company for which she worked. Family members said Arpana apparently died on the night between Friday and Saturday, but was found only on Monday.

Arpana did her B-Tech in computer science from VNR Vigyan Jyoti Institute of Engineering and Technology, Bachipally, Hyderabad before going to the US in April 2005. A bright student, Arpana was listed in the top 20 winning entries of Microchip Technology Inc contest for Digital Signal Control Design on December 12, 2004. The contest involved thousands of engineers across the world purchasing Microchip’s Design Contest Kit and submitting models showing their design skills. Contestants like Arpana created product design, flow diagrams and circuits based on digital signal controller and she was among the 20 winners judged on the basis of innovation. Arpana’s entry was a communications jammer.

Arpana’s Facebook profile does not reveal much but shows a photo of hers clad in jeans and a blue T-shirt with a camera hanging around her neck, taken near a race track.

Arpana’s sister Pavitra is doing second-year engineering in Hyderabad while her mother is a housewife. Relatives said the Jinaga family has gone into a state of shock and has no idea what to do.

“They do not have any relatives there and are depending on some friends to find out when the autopsy is being done and how the body can be brought to Hyderabad. Her body has been taken by police to King County Medical Examiner’s Office on Monday evening. No one in the family has till now thought of going to Seattle. They are all in shock,” a relative said.