Judge denies bail to stabbing

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – A judge denied bail Wednesday to a college student accused of stabbing one of his professors because he was upset about a failing grade.

During a dangerousness hearing in Cambridge District Court, Judge Michele Hogan refused Nikhil Dhar’s request to be confined to his uncle’s home with an electronic monitoring bracelet.

The 22-year-old is accused of attacking Mary Elizabeth Hooker, one of his professors at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He has pleaded innocent to charges of armed assault with intent to murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Police say Dhar was upset about a failing grade when he followed Hooker to her Cambridge home last Thursday and allegedly hit her and stabbed her in the neck.

Hooker, an assistant professor of clinical lab sciences, was released from a Boston hospital on Saturday. “When I saw the weapon then I knew it wasn’t just to talk,” she said. “When you see a weapon you know you have to fight, and I realized I had to, and I know I could have died.”

UMass-Lowell has revoked Dhar’s enrollment for next semester, school spokeswoman Patti McCafferty said.