Kalahasthi
Student found hanged in home
Suicide: Prasanna Kalahasthi had been living in United States six months when her husband died in WTC attack
By SPENCER MORGAN
Staff Writer
Shockwaves from the Sept. 11 attacks have claimed another victim, as a grieving widow whose husband was killed on American Airlines Flight 11, died in an apparent suicide near campus Friday afternoon.
Prasanna Kalahasthi, a USC graduate student in the International Student Program for Foreign-Trained Dentists, was found in her Catalina Street apartment Friday hanging from the chin-up bar of her home exercise machine. She was 25 years old.
“Everything there, everything we saw indicates a suicide,” said Department of Public Safety Deputy Chief Bob Taylor. The case is classified as a probable suicide as authorities await the coroners final report Los Angeles Police Department and DPS officials examined her body and the apartment for clues. There
were no signs of trauma on the body except for to the neck, Taylor said.
On a desk in her apartment, officials found a receipt dated Oct. 15 for a length of rope. Near her body, they found a letter from New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani dated Oct
12	inviting her to a memorial service scheduled Oct. 28 to mourn the death of her husband.
Kalahasthi’s husband, Pendyala “Vamsi” Vamiskrishna, died onboard the first hijacked airliner that careened into the World Trade Center Sept 11. Vamiskrishna, 30, worked for
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3 cars damaged in fire
Fearful
Fascination
Editorial Director John Burgoon examines our deepest fears and what compels us to face them / 4
Student newspaper of the University of Southern California
TUESDAY
--♦----
October 23, 2001
Of interest...
Former1 Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman Glen Phillips talks about his sob career / 7
News Digest	2	Roundup	3
Opinions	4	Lifestyle	7
The Buzz	7	Classifieds	12
Crossword	13	Sports	14
vol. CXUV, no. 39 www.dailytrojan.cooi
Mason Pode i Daily Troian
In mourning. Students placed a sign memorializing Prasanna Kalahasthi on her desk in the School of Dentistry.
smelled smoke as he parked his truck in Lot 6, he said.
“Flames were dripping from the car,” said Horn, a professor of psychology. “They were really colorful."
Department of Public Safety officers received a radio call saying that there was a fire in Lot 6 and responded to the call. Officer Frederick Mossarotti said.
“By the time we got here, the Nissan pickup was fully engulfed," Mossarotti said.
Witnesses described the fire as a billowing of smoke.
“There was gray smoke first, followed by black smoke," said Raj Ravindoran, a lecturer in environmental and civil engineering, who witnessed the fire.
Others said the fire spread just after the windows melted.
Alexander Richter, a junior majoring in psychology, ran from the nearby tennis courts when he saw a cloud of smoke and came to the parking lot to see where the smoke was coming from.
“It smelled really bad," Richter said. “There was large popping noises, because the tires were melting."
The heat of the fire and the close proximity of the first car to the other vehicles is probably what caused it to spread, officials said.
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Fire: Professor’s Nissan pickup ignites in parking lot at south end of campus
By SOPHIA KAZMI
Assistant City Editor
A car fire spread in the Kaprielian Hall parking lot engulfing three cars and damaging several others Monday afternoon. No one
was injured.
The cause of the fire was still under investigation, Los Angeles Fire Department officials said Monday. LAFD responded about five minutes after the fire began around 2 p.m., witnesses said. The fire was put out in a matter of minutes, but the front ends of three cars were severely damaged.
John Horn, the owner of a gray Nissan pickup that started the fire,
Crystal Lauderdale l Daily Troian
Burned out. Los Angeles Fire Department officers douse the flames that started in Prof. John Horn's Nissan and seriously damaged two other cars.
Definitions of terrorism examined
Islamic experts field student questions, debunk myths
Event 'Toward Understanding Islam’focuses on religious beliefs; addresses new concerns about practices, beliefs
Panel: Candid discussion focuses on the meaning of terms describing violence
By LORI STUENKEL
Student Senate Writer
Political violence, not terrorism, is what political science Professor Richard Dekmejian deemed the Sept
11	attacks, he said during a faculty-student discussion Monday.
Relaxed and candid dialogue on last months attacks continued with “After the Attack: The War Scenario," a discussion held in Tyler Prize
Pavilion. Dekmejian and political science professors Howard Gillman and Judith Grant joined about 15 students in discussing a range of issues related to terrorism.
The small group, composed mostly of graduate students, listened to and asked questions of the faculty, who talked about how to define terrorism and identify different types of terrorists.
“Political violence” was the term preferred over “terrorism" by Dekmejian, because “it is a much more neutral word." He said that state terrorism, such as that which occurred in South Africa during the
fight against apartheid, is sometimes the change that comes after years of peaceful attempts to reform a corrupt government
Terrorists are undoubtedly those who attack women and children rather than military or government targets, Dekmejian said.
The lynching of blacks in the South is an example of terrorism, Grant said.
“The effect was that the whole population was afraid," she said. “Out of that fear, they are forced to follow certain rules, even if they are unreasonable.”
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By VINAY CHARI
Contributing Writer
Students learned about Islam in its purely religious form, with little reference to terrorism or world politics, during a presentation in Bovard Auditorium Monday night
“We were hearing a lot about what Islam is not but we weren't hearing about what Islam is,"
Muslim Student Union board member Milad F.rshaghi said in his remarks introducing the panel.
The presentation, titled “Towards Understanding Islam", featured four experts on the faith discussing the theology of Islam. The panelists fielded audience questions about last months attacks, misconceptions and the media’s portrayal..
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