Abhijeet Mahato (29), an IIT alumnus who was studying for an engineering doctorate degree at the Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering in Durham, was found shot dead by his friends at his residence near the campus on Friday night.

Senior Indian Embassy officials are travelling to Duke University to meet the authorities and make arrangements for sending his body home.

It is hoped that the body of Mahato, a native of Jharkhand, will be released after the autopsy on Monday following which arrangements can be made to take it to India.

Detectives and crime-scene technicians spent the early morning hours of Saturday combing the spot and found "some clues", media reports said. The police chief of Durham, Jose Lopez, has been quoted in local reports as saying that the crime is not believed to be related to "gang violence".

At Duke, officials responded to the news by sending out an all-campus e-mail early Saturday apprising students, staff and faculty that a graduate student had been shot to death.

Federal law requires universities to issue timely warnings of any incident that might pose an ongoing threat to students or employees.