Nitish S Rele in Tampa

                 On July 11, 1999, Deepa Agarwal was murdered in her
                 Orlando apartment.

                 On July 19, Orlando police discovered her body in a cardboard box in a closet.

                 Now, on the death anniversary of the 20-year-old, her sister Sheela Agarwal is
                 planning to hold a vigil in front of the White House seeking the killer's
                 extradition.

                 "I want to make sure that justice is served," Sheela Agarwal told rediff.com

                 The murder suspect is Kamlesh Agarwal, a cousin of Deepa's father. An
                 arrest warrant has been out for him since last summer. Not much is known of
                 his whereabouts except that he is in India. His parents live at Breach Candy,
                 Bombay.

                 According to the Orlando police, Kamlesh Agarwal sold his car the day Deepa
                 was murdered, bought a ticket to India, and was dropped off at the airport by a
                 college mate.

                 The police said Deepa had come home late on July 10 after a night out with her
                 friends. When she arrived home, they say, she had a heated argument with
                 Kamlesh, who was in the apartment at the time. A couple of hours later, police
                 say, neighbours saw Kamlesh leaving the apartment.

                 The police found Deepa's body a couple of days later when they entered the
                 apartment. They were responding to a complaint from friends and parents who
                 had not heard from her.

                 "I am using all the means at my disposal to get Kamlesh extradited to the
                 United States so he can stand trial in Florida," said Sheela, a graduate student
                 of economics at Duke University, North Carolina.

                 In May, Sheela started a Web site to help in her effort to close the unresolved
                 chapter in her sister's death. The site, http://www.duke.edu/~sa9/, gives details
                 of the murder. Through the Web site, she is urging people to write letters to
                 their respective congressmen to see that justice is served.

                 In 1987, India and the US signed an extradition treaty that calls for prompt
                 extradition of fugitive offenders to the requesting nation. Though the US has
                 requested the Indian government to extradite Kamlesh Agarwal, there has
                 been no progress in the matter.

                 "I have spoken several times to Harry Marshal in the office of international
                 affairs at the Department of Justice," said Sheela. "But the US government
                 needs to put pressure on the Indian authorities, especially the Bombay police, to
                 arrest Kamlesh. I believe that the only power I can pin big hopes on right now
                 is the US government. But they really have to aggressively pursue extradition
                 with the Indian authorities..."

                 Kamlesh Agarwal's parents run a wholesale textile clothing business in
                 Bombay. Deepa's parents, Mangi and Parwati, and 15-year-old brother
                 Deepak live in Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi. According to Sheela, her father visits
                 Bombay almost every week to get the police there to act, but without any
                 visible effect.

                 "My sister's name, Deepa, means candle in Hindi. That is why we planned a
                 vigil in Washington DC. Congressman Dan Miller of Florida will also hold a
                 press conference in front of Capitol Hill to speak about the case," she says.

                 "Though born and raised in the US, my sister was traditionally Indian," said
                 Sheela. "I miss her a lot. I hope she doesn't become a victim of bureaucracy
                 too."