WHEN THE call came, Saraswathi Vedam was in university in Massachusetts in 1982, halfway through her Master’s degree in community health education.

Her younger brother, Subramanyam — “Subu” to family — was on the phone. He had been detained and, a few months later, accused of murdering a classmate. “He told me not to worry,” Saraswathi told The Indian Express . “He said, ‘They are just trying to pressure me. It’s going to be okay. Please don’t disturb Amma and Appa’s trip to Europe.’”

But it wasn’t okay. Within hours, Saraswathi drove hundreds of miles south to State College, the college town that’s home to Penn State University’s main campus. It was where they had grown up, where their father K Vedam, a physics professor and later professor emeritus, and their mother Nalini, who ran a

See Full Page