Indian student missing in Dominican Republic: Who is Sudiksha Konanki? What we know of the case so far

A 20-year old Indian student has gone missing while on vacation in the Dominican Republic and US federal law enforcement agencies are working with authorities in the Caribbean country on the investigation in her disappearance.

Sudiksha Konanki is a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States. A student at the University of Pittsburgh, Konanki was reported to be vacationing with five female college friends at a resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Monday.

Konanki was reported missing on March 6. The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) said it continues to assist and support the US federal law enforcement agencies working with the Dominican National Police and others to determine Konanki’s whereabouts and what may have happened to her.

Who is Sudiksha Konanki?

(L-R) What Konanki was last seen in; search on for the missing girl

Konanki, a resident of Loudoun County, Virginia, was reported missing while vacationing on a spring break trip in Punta Cana and was last seen in the early morning of March 6.

She attended the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, as per her LinkedIn profile, and is expected to graduate from Pittsburgh University in 2026. Konanki is originally from Aashburn, Virginia.

Reportedly she was last seen wearing a brown two-piece bikini, a multicoloured beaded bracelet on her left wrist, yellow and steel bracelets on her right, and an anklet on the right leg, along with large round earrings.

Speaking to CNN, Konanki's father said she had told her fiends she was headed to a party at the resort.

"My daughter is a very nice girl. She’s ambitious. She wanted to pursue a career in medicine," he also said.

Riu República hotel, where she was staying before the disappearance, told Dominican Today that they were working closely with the authorities to try and find her.

How did she disappear?

Authorities search for the missing individual

On March 6, early morning, Konanki went to the beach around 4 am with friends and some guys they met at the resort, the father Subbarayudu said.

While her friends came back from the beach after some time, Konanki did not.

Who has the cops spoken to?

Credit: Facebook/Sudiksha Konanki

An ABC News quoted two police sources with knowledge of the investigation as saying that Konanki's clothes were discovered on a “portable beach bed close to the beach where she went missing”.

The police have found no evidence of violence, according to sources.

A man, however, stayed behind with her on the beach, as per the police. He and Konanki had gone for a swim and got caught by a big wave, the police report said, as per ABC News.

The man is understood to have told the police that when he got back to the beach, he threw up and went to sleep on a beach bed. “When he woke up, Konanki was nowhere to be seen,” the report said.

Sources have said that the man, who was seen in security video coming back to his hotel room at 9:55 am, is “not considered a suspect in Konanki's death".

Konanki's friends, who were with her around the time of her disappearance, were also questioned by the police and have not been charged with crimes, the ABC News report said.

What's next?

Dominican national police building

While Konanki's father wants possible kidnapping and human trafficking angles to be probed, authorities, too, are not ruling out anything at this point, though they are all hoping for a positive outcome in the matter.

(With PTI inputs)