Thursday, October 11, 2001

Student dies trying to prevent car theft
By Kristina Hodgson
Daily Texan (University of Texas)

AUSTIN (U-WIRE) — Less than two months after enrolling at the University of Texas, Samarth Gupta’s dreams to one day become a commercial airline pilot ended tragically when he was killed over the weekend after attempting to prevent a theft.

Gupta, freshman, went to see a movie with friends on the evening of Oct. 5 while visiting in Dallas for the Texas-OU game.

The group of four unexpectedly met up with two more friends and lingered outside the theater to chat. They soon noticed a white Ford Explorer with its hood propped open and hazard lights blinking parked next to one of their cars.

Ilya Chukhman, Gupta’s best friend and engineering freshman at Oklahoma University, said it looked like two people were working under the raised hood.

In the middle of the conversation, Gupta ran toward the two vehicles and yelled behind him that he thought someone was tampering with Chukhman’s car.

Chukhman said that Gupta yelled back, “They’re trying to steal your CD player!”

Chukhman ran to aid his friend, but the thieves had already climbed inside their Explorer. Gupta stood in the car’s path in an attempt to prevent the thieves from fleeing the scene, but the Explorer struck Gupta and “ran him over like a speed bump,” Chukhman said.

Immediately, the friends called the police, and an ambulance arrived to take Gupta to the Medical City of Plano Hospital. Later, he was transferred by helicopter to Parkland hospital, where he died.

Gupta’s friends remembered the Explorer’s license plate and positively identified the suspects at the police station early Saturday morning. Police arrested four suspects — two adults and two 15-year-old boys, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Chukhman said Gupta’s heroic attempt on Friday was typical of the good Samaritan nature in which he led his life.

“(He was) everything you’d want a friend to be: very honest, always did the right thing, never talked behind your back.”

Gupta’s family said last weekend marked the first time he had been home in a month. He last visited his parents over Labor Day weekend.

“We talked for about four hours before he went to the movie — he would tell me each and every little thing,” his mother Renu Gupta said. “Of course, we are his parents, but he was more like a friend to us.”

His family moved to America from India about six years ago, she said, adding that it was her son’s dream to study at the University.

“Even though he enjoyed only a month of college, at least he got to see that much,” she said.

In the brief time he was home in Plano, she said Gupta asked her to cook some Indian food that he could bring back for his friend, Saurabh Singh, also a freshman in the College of Liberal Arts and a native Indian.

“I was missing Indian food, a good home-cooked meal. That showed just how kind Sam was,” said Singh, an economics freshman who lived one floor above Gupta in Jester East.

Gupta’s parents had always emphasized that he should strive not only for good grades, but also to become a good citizen.

“This is not my loss alone. I believe that the world has lost its good citizen,” said his father Rajeev Gupta. “He would have definitely contributed to building a positive, new world.”