He has been named as Devinder Sivia, a Sikh mathematics lecturer at St John’s College. He was on Thursday (12 January 2012) night arrested on suspicion of the murder after the body of a famous Steven Rawlings was found battered in Sivia’s village home. It is really shameful for India.

Indians who go abroad are in fact the ambassadors of good-will. They are supposed to give and spread a good message of Indian culture and civilization to the whole world, rather than becoming criminals. It is said that at 50, Rawlings was just a year older than Silvia. The Oxford community was really shocked. It is also said that, these two had collaborated on projects for a decade and taught joint courses and co-authored books.

When paramedics turned up at Sivia’s bungalow in the village of Southmoor after 11 pm, they found a neighbour trying to resuscitate Rawlings. Shortly afterwards, police were seen leading Sivia away in handcuffs. Sivia was on Friday released on bail till April 18. One newspaper speculated the two friends might have fought over an academic matter. But The Times reported that Sivia had told the police he acted in self-defence.

Police said a post-mortem had proved inconclusive and more tests would be undertaken. Rawlings whose village was 12 km away from Sivia’s, was spearheading a Pound 1/4 bn project known as Square Kilometre Army to build the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope. Sivia specialized in an area of statistics known as Bayesian Probability Theory. Southmoor was home to British government scientist, Dr. David Kelly, who had committed suicide in 2003 after questioning the ‘dodgy dossier’ claim that the Iraqis could deploy biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order to use them. Oxford University Vice Chancellor Professor Andrew Hamilton said the entire university community had been saddened and shocked by Rawling’s death.