FBI joins search for Indian-origin student missing in Caribbean town

The FBI has joined the search for a 20-year-old Indian student who went missing nearly a week ago while on spring break in the Dominican tourist town of Punta Cana, the police said on Tuesday.

The Dominican police said they were re-interviewing people who were with Sudiksha Konanki, the University of Pittsburgh student, before she vanished in the pre-dawn hours of March 6 at a beach in front of the Riu Republica Hotel.

The hotel said Konanki’s disappearance coincided with a power outage that prompted multiple guests to head to the beach where she was last seen.

Dominican President Luis Abinader told mediapersons that he lamented the situation.

“We are concerned,” he said on Monday during his weekly meeting with the press. “All government agencies are searching … because the latest information we have from one of them, from the last person who was with the young woman, what he says according to the reports is that a wave, while on the beach, crashed into them.”

Abinader also defended the safety of tourists in the Dominican Republic.

Konanki’s parents, Subbarayudu and Sreedevi, flew to Punta Cana with two family friends after she was reported missing and have asked authorities to widen the investigation.

Her father said she and five other female university students travelled to the Dominican Republic on March 3.

Konanki, a citizen of India, is a US permanent resident from Chantilly, Virginia, according to the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.