By Jackie Burns
Police gunned him down suspecting he was of the “Cherokee bandits,” a group cops says stole more than $1 million in a string of bank heists.
But at the time of his death, Manish Ohdavji hadn’t even made the minimum payment on his tuition fees at Ryerson, the Eyeopener has learned.
The ambiguity surrounding Ohdavji’s ”status” at Ryerson was a result of his failure to make the minimum payment on his $3,874.34 balance, money which was due Sept. 5.
Early last week Ryerson denied Ohdavji was a student at the school, but has since confirmed he was attending classes this fall as a first-year industrial engineering student. They stand by their claim he “hadn’t completed the registration process.”
Ian Marlatt, director of communications at Ryerson, wouldn’t confirm Ohdavji hadn’t paid his fees, but said for the registration process to be complete, each first-year student must have an offer of admission and meet the financial criteria. He did say Ohdavji was accepted into the first-year engineering program.
“We weren’t trying to cover anything up,” said Marlatt.
He insisted his department gave Toronto and Ryerson media all the information they had at the time. “I hated the delay,” he said.
Since then the school has reviewed Ohdavji’s status after consulting with Admissions, Records and Registration, Financial Aid, Finance, and the industrial Engineering departments.
They found Ohdavji had enrolled in aerospace engineering in the fall of 1995 but didn’t register for the next two terms. He took a night-school course in Calculus in January of this year, and was accepted into first year industrial engineering this fall. Marlatt confirmed Ohdavji had turned papers that were marked by an instructor.
“It’s unfortunate that a Ryerson student had to go through something like this,” he said referring to the shoot-out.
Leave a Reply