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Sudiksha Konanki missing: Investigator doubts drowning theory, says ‘must look at man last seen with Indian student’
Sudiksha Konanki, a 20-year-old Indian student, went missing in Dominican Republic during spring break. Authorities are probing the last man seen with her.
While the Federal Bureau of Investigation has joined the search for 20-year-old Sudiksha Konanki, an Indian student from the University of Pittsburgh who went missing while vacationing in the Dominican Republic, a private investigator in the US said he does not believe she drowned, urging authorities to target the last man seen with her.
Sudiksha Konanki went missing nearly a week ago while on spring break in the Dominican Republic tourist town of Punta Cana, police said on Tuesday.
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"Everybody thinks that she's in the water. I got a different feeling. She didn't drown. If she was put in the water, somebody put her there, and I just learned some new information that her clothes were found," private investigator TJ Ward told Fox News in an interview.
"I just got that information about 10 minutes ago. So, that's some new information, and we need to look at. I'm real concerned about this individual that was last seen with her at 5:00 in the morning and I think they've interviewed him. I think they need to target him and try to see if he's going to tell the truth," Fox News quoted TJ Ward as saying.
Also Read | As hunt for Indian student Sudiksha Konanki enters day 4 in Dominican Republic, a father's plea
New surveillance footage has surfaced, believed to show the last known images of Sudiksha Konanki. The video, obtained by Noticias SIN, shows Sudiksha Konanki walking with her friends and two other men towards the beach in Punta Cana.
Watch the video here:
Sudiksha Konanki, who was enjoying a spring break trip with friends, was reported missing later that day. She was last seen around 4 am on March 6, at the Riu Republica Hotel. Since then, authorities have been searching both on land and in the water for any signs of her.
According, Ward he has special voice analysis technology that could determine if the man last seen with her is telling the truth.
"I think there's something more to this," he said, adding, "His story has changed several times, which concerns me. I think that's why law enforcement is targeting him again and asking witnesses and people who are with them. So, there's a whole lot of information that has not been found yet."
Ward was involved in the high-profile case of Natalee Holloway, the American teenager who was murdered during a school trip to Aruba in 2005.
Over 300 people have joined the search efforts, and the Dominican Republic National Police has set up a special "high-level commission" to handle the case. The investigation also involves the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office from Sudiksha's hometown in Virginia, the US Attorney General's Office, the FBI, and the US Embassy’s International Liaison.
Dominican police said they were re-interviewing people who were with Sudiksha Konanki before she vanished.
The hotel said in a statement that 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 reporters 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.
Sudiksha Konanki, a citizen of India, is a US permanent resident from Chantilly, Virginia, according to the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.
