Washington -- Authorities at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where two Indian students were murdered on Thursday night, swiftly moved to set up a “Komma and Allam Support Fund” to assist the families of the dead students.

The fund is named after the murdered students, Komma Chandrasekhar Reddy, 31, and Allam Kiran Kumar, 33.

Stung by criticism about neglecting security at the campus, authorities yesterday belatedly moved in to ensure visible vigilance at the Edward Gay Apartments, the scene of the murders, and other housing units on the notoriously insecure campus.

The LSU police department, working with the Baton Rouge police department, the East Baton Rouge parish sheriff’s office, and the Louisiana State Police, with assistance from the FBI, has launched an intense manhunt for three men, said to be African Americans, who were seen leaving the scene of the murders shortly before the bodies were discovered.

LSU chancellor Sean ’Keefe yesterday revised initial police attempts to dismiss the murders as a random incident resulting from “home invasion.” That view would have led to the surmise that burglary was a motive behind the murders.

At a news conference yesterday, Major Lawrence Rabalais of the LSU police was asked about an incident last year, in which a chemistry student at the university threatened one of the victims.

Rabalais said that incident was one of the things the investigators were looking into, adding he was not sure which of the victims was involved.

’Keefe said the Indian students “appeared to be targeted for reasons unknown .... This does not appear to be a random event.”

The LSU chancellor, who initiated several corrective measures on the campus yesterday, locking the proverbial stables after the horses had bolted, is not only used to high-profile critics but also has experience in dealing with Indians under similarly tragic circumstances.

He was head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration when Indian American astronaut Kalpana Chawla was killed in the crash of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003.

This time round, ’Keefe and LSU have reasons for serious worry. Nearly 23 per cent international students enrolled at LSU are Indians. They form “the largest group of international students from a single country at LSU this fall”, the university acknowledged in a media advisoryyesterday.

Bad publicity surrounding the murders could deter foreign students — who are an important source of income for LSU — from applying there in future. That view gained credence yesterday when an Indian doctoral student, Sachin Chintawar, told the Baton Rouge media that he was “totally shocked” and felt unsafe on the campus.

“Everybody is talking about moving,” said Chintawar, who shared the university’s Edward Gay Apartments building with Kiran. “People are asking, ‘Is it worth your life to study here?’”

Chintawar, whose roommate was mugged and had his wallet stolen recently, said Indian and other foreign students were easy targets because “they (robbers) think we don’t do anything but study, and we won’t resist or anything.… There is no safety at all here.”

Given the large Indian interest in LSU’s affairs, the deputy head of the consular section of the Indian embassy here, Alok Pandey, swung into action as soon as the murders came to light, fixing up meetings for today with the university and police officials in Baton Rouge.

Pandey and K.P. Pillai, a consul from the Indian consulate-general in Houston, are to meet Indian students at LSU today and later attend a memorial service for Reddy and Kiran organised by the Indian Student Association.

The Indian ambassador to the US, Ronen Sen, said in a statement that he hoped “the culprits will be caught and due justice meted out to them.”